We have a long Michigan winter ahead of us—what will she do when it gets brutally cold? How will she stay warm? I’ll have to ask what her plan is. If she has one.
November 19th
It’s gotten very cold. I saw a few snow flurries earlier, but there was no accumulation.
Days are blurring together. With no schedule, no deadlines, no frame of reference, I sometimes can’t recall what day of the week it is. I guess it doesn’t matter.
I have three ways to judge the passing of time. One is by the growth of my plants. Another is my facial hair and how fast it grows. The final way is by watching the bruises on my face slowly fade. Otherwise, it’s just another day.
Except for Michelle. I must admit, she’s the bright part of my day, and I always look forward to talking to her. Truth be told, I’m kind of sweet on her. But now I have to make a decision.
This morning she called me on the radio. She said it was quiet outside and wondered if she could come over. I was glad to say yes, and when the coast was clear, I met her at the door.
She was wearing a cardigan sweater, a color of brown which matched her eyes. She gave me a big hug and told me it was good to see me again. I felt the same. I also felt her marvelous breasts as they pressed against me. Have mercy, does she have a rack.
We made some small talk as we headed downstairs—she was asking me something about the music I have. When we were in the living room, she handed me a small bag I hadn’t noticed she was carrying and said, “I made you a little thank you gift.”
Inside were some chocolate cookies—the no-bake kind made with oatmeal. I immediately ate one, and it was delicious. I didn’t stock up on many sweets (except dark chocolate), so it was a real treat. And I commented on how smart she was to come up with something that didn’t require cooking!
She started looking a little bit nervous, and said, “There’s something I’d like to talk about.” Statements like that always make me wary. “I have a proposal to make.” I was feeling a bit jumpy, and to stall for time I offered to make some coffee. “Oh my God yes! I haven’t had coffee since . . .” her words faded off. The last time she had coffee was when she was over here, upset because she saw the zombies attack and kill the Ericksons.
When I asked her how she wanted it, she said black as sin. She definitely had a twinkle in her eye. I didn’t know if it was because of the hot coffee or the sin.
I went into the kitchen and ground some beans with the hand grinder. I poured the grounds in the French press, then heated up some water. After it came to a boil, I poured it on top of the grounds and carried the pot and two mugs into the living room. “We’ll let it steep for a few minutes,” I said. “Meanwhile, what’s your proposal?”
“I’m living in a dark house with no light, no heat, and no diversions other than you. Looking out the window and seeing zombies freaks me out, so I don’t do that. You’ve helped me keep my sanity. Just knowing you’re over here has really helped me. I was thinking back to when you brought the radio over and got attacked, and how I reacted so strongly. To be honest with you, I was pissed at myself for letting you become a friend. I don’t do well with men. I have some baggage. So when I thought you were dead, that I might see you out there shuffling along with the rest of the zombies, it really messed with my head. I freaked out. So again, I apologize,” she said, looking into my eyes. It was a bit unnerving, and I was the one who looked away first.
“Please, that’s all water under the bridge,” I replied. She went on.
“I tried to reach you on the radio the next day, but you wouldn’t answer. Part of me was afraid you’d gotten infected and had turned into one of them, and it made me feel desperate. But part of me thought you had written me off, and you’d never talk to me again. That night I drank a lot of wine and woke up with a hangover.”
In turn, I admitted to having gotten angry with her for yelling at me. I felt it was unjustified. I’d risked my ass to take her the radio, and felt like I deserved better treatment. I told her the anger didn’t last long.
“You were right,” she said, “it was unjustified, and you deserved better. But since then we’ve had a fresh start.”
“Agreed.”
“So back to my proposal. I’ll be straight-up with you. I’d like to move in. Strictly platonic. I could sleep on the couch or wherever is best. But I think two people living in one place are safer than two people living in two places. I was reading my Bible yesterday,” she went on.
She reads the Bible? And Fifty Shades of Gray? I thought
“ . . . and I came across the verses in Ecclesiastes—you know the ones that say:
Two are better than one, because they have a good return on their labor: if either of them falls down, one can help the other stand up.
“I felt like it was sort of a sign. And to lay all of my cards on the table, I don’t have much food left. I’m cold, I’m lonely, and I’m depressed. Except when I’m with you.”
“So what’s in it for me?” I asked.
Before she answered my question, she stood up. “Hold that thought,” she said. “Your place is much warmer than mine. This sweater is making me hot.” As I watched, she unbuttoned the sweater and took it off, revealing a pretty teal blouse, conservatively cut and yet still showing more than a hint of ample cleavage. I suppose with breasts as large as hers, cleavage nearly always shows. She sat down, holding the sweater in her lap. I suspected it was a blatant attempt at manipulation but in this case, I didn’t mind being manipulated. “I could help out around here. I could help keep the place picked up. It looks like you could use some help in that area,” she said, looking around the room which had admittedly gotten pretty cluttered. The floor needed sweeping, there were a few dirty glasses here and there along with empty beer bottles and DVDs in and out of their cases. Thank God I didn’t have any porn DVDs lying around! “I’m also a nurse. If you get sick or hurt, I can treat you. And I have one trick up my sleeve you don’t know about,” she hinted.
It’s not what’s up your sleeve that I’m interested in! I thought, glancing at her exposed cleavage. I dismissed the thought. “You have a trick up your sleeve?”
“Yes.” She paused, keeping me in suspense.
” . . . I have . . . in my garage . . . a shortwave radio!” She said. A shortwave! Why didn’t I think to get one of those?! Damn!
“You have a shortwave? Does it work?!”
“Yes, I have one, but I don’t know if it works—I don’t have power, you dufus! So that’s my proposal. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I know we barely know each other, and you don’t owe me anything, but we’re both alive. Let’s be roommates, if we can’t be friends. I won’t give you a hard time about any of your, um, habits,” she said, glancing over to my movie collection. “I’ll help out with whatever needs to be done around here, and I’ll keep you company.”
“What makes you think I have enough food for both of us?” I asked her.
“I don’t know if you do. But I could bring over the food I have, and if the zombies stay away, maybe we can go scavenging in the empty houses.” I sat there, thinking. I had plenty of supplies to last one person a year or so. I had my hydroponics. I had enough food to last two people a long time. And she was right—there’s safety in numbers. I could watch her back (or front!), she could watch mine. As I was thinking, she continued to talk. “So, here specifically is what I’m proposing. I propose I bring my shortwave radio and anything else you could use. I propose I stay here on a trial basis. If we hate each other after two weeks, I’ll move back to my house and figure out how to survive. But if we don’t hate each other, we’ll agree to extend the trial period. I had roommates in college,” she said, “I know how they can start out being fun, but after a while you can’t stand them. So I know it could happen. But you’re a nice guy, and I’m usually a pretty nice person, so if you accept my proposal maybe we can make it work. I don’t expect you to answer me right now. But could you at least think about it before you say no? P
lease?”
I poured the coffee, lost in thought. I offered her a cup and as she took it our hands touched. She sipped her coffee and waited through my silence. In the end, I told her I’d sleep on it and let her know tomorrow. She seemed a bit deflated that I didn’t give her an answer right away, but I don’t rush into things. I want to think about the pros and cons of having a near-stranger—and a woman at that—living with me in my basement. A beautiful woman. Using my supplies and electricity. Potentially making me miserable. Or very happy.
“Thanks, Kevin. And if you decide it won’t work, I hope we can stay friends and keep each other sane,” she said.
I lifted an eyebrow and said, “You think you’re sane?”
“As sane as you are,” she teased back. We sat there drinking our coffee and talking, and time passed quickly. Around lunch time I was hungry, so we opened some canned chili and heated it in the microwave. She asked if she could make us more coffee.
“You only love me for my coffee,” I said with a smile.
She gave me a sultry look, slowly licked her lips, and with a husky voice said, “I’d do just about anything for a cup of hot coffee!” She then laughed out loud, long and hard. She has a wonderful, vivacious laugh. I couldn’t help but laugh along with her, even as I felt my manhood stir in response to her words.
She opted to have hot coffee with hot chili. A combination that doesn’t appeal to me, but then again I’ve enjoyed hot food all along and it’s a treat for her.
After lunch, she said she was going home to give me time to think. I walked her up the stairs and we checked the windows. There were still a couple of zombies on the street, but they weren’t moving much, and were too far away to see her run between our houses.
As we stood by the door, she began to put her sweater back on, giving me a cheap thrill when she had to arch her back to get both arms in their sleeves. Even in the dim light she looks good.
When we were both sure the coast was clear, I unbolted and opened the side door a crack. Michelle gave me another big hug (complete with her big breasts) and said, “Thanks, Kevin. Thanks for hearing me out. I’m glad we’re friends and neighbors.” I was hoping she’d give me another quick kiss, but she didn’t. She scooted out the door and I watched her scramble through her gate. When I heard the door to her house open and close, I closed and bolted mine as well.
After she left I was curious, so I looked up the Bible verses she quoted. It took me awhile to find them, but I remembered her saying they were in Ecclesiastes (which took a while to find too). I was mildly surprised when I found them:
Two are better than one, because they have a good return on their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other stand up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
Here’s the part I was surprised by, the part she intentionally or unintentionally left out:
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?
Damn this libido! It’s so distracting.
November 20th
I’ve been thinking it over. I made a list of pros and cons. For the pros, I had things like: having a nurse here would be good, she has a shortwave, two really are safer than one, she has large breasts, she’s good company. For the cons I listed other things, like: supplies would go twice as fast, one quarter of the time she’ll be in PMS, she has large breasts but they’re off-limits which keeps me constantly aroused and frustrated.
I’m sure I could think of more things.
I like Michelle—she and I have the similar tastes in music, movies and humor, she seems intelligent and I really enjoy talking to her. I don’t know her politics or her sexual proclivities—if she has any. I don’t really know much about her at all.
But I remembered back in college when I moved in with Steve. We became good friends and kept in touch over the years. I always looked up to him. I hope he found a way to survive.
I think I’ll be able to handle having her as a roommate. And like she said, if it’s not working out, we’ll both know.
I wish I had more time to think about it, but I told her I’d tell her today. It wouldn’t be fair to make her wait longer.
I still have some reservations. I know from past experience how a woman can make me fly high or sink low. I know getting close to someone, especially now, is asking for heartache. And if things get really bad, I don’t know if she’ll be an asset or a hindrance.
Bottom line: I want it more than I don’t want it. Just like her, I’m lonely. I think if I had to stay here alone until spring, I’d probably go nuts.
If it works out, it could work out great. We could both be happy. Being happy and making someone else happy is worth the risk.
I’m going to get on the radio and let her know.
November 22nd
I talked to Michelle over the radio a couple days ago. “I’d like to formally invite you to move into my place,” I said. I heard a big sigh of relief.
“That’s great news. I think it’s a win-win,” she said. Then she got quiet for a few moments. I think she was so relieved she was crying. She spent a few minutes assuring me I wouldn’t regret it, and towards the end she was practically gushing with excitement. I’ll admit, part of me was rolling my eyes, but it made me feel good, too.
We spent about a half hour going over what she should bring and what I didn’t need or didn’t have room for. Her furniture wouldn’t fit, for example. And heavy bulky stuff would be too risky to attempt to move—we would be outside far too long. I’m glad she has a blow-up mattress, so she can sleep on the floor and I won’t feel guilty. The living room will be cramped when the mattress is inflated, but we can put it away during the day and inflate it at night.
I started making room for her—I cleaned out one closet for her clothes. We don’t need a lot of clothes—it’s not like I’ll ever have a reason to wear my tux again or even a neck tie. And our clothes should stay pretty clean since we’ll rarely go outside. Plus we have the closets upstairs for clothes overflow.
I ended up feeling kind of guilty about the porn, so I went through my movies and selected the ones with the most egregious titles and put them in a box in the closet. I really have no interest in watching Masturbation Mayhem #3 or Full Bush Amateurs or Buttman 11: Anal Cherries. And with her here, I’d be embarrassed to play the ones I might like. Fortunately for me, I do have a set of earbuds so I can discreetly and privately play them on my laptop. That would be weird, secretly watching porn while Michelle’s in the next room. Kind of creepy.
A select few that didn’t look so bad stayed mixed in with my video collection. And I decided to leave “Night of the Giving Head” and “I Can’t Believe I Fucked a Zombie” on the shelf.
It’s my sense of humor. She’ll have to get used to it.
Yesterday it rained, and I mean hard, so we agreed to hold off moving her stuff until the sky cleared. We don’t want anything to get wet, don’t want to slip and fall on the wet grass.
It was peculiar, watching the street. Zombies slowly wandered aimlessly around, their rotting faces void of expression. Some had suffered horrible injuries but were oblivious. One of the zombies was a topless woman who had evidently had a partial mastectomy.
I watched the cold November rain pour down from the gray sky upon the lifeless yet animated corpses of human beings, obviously not alive and yet not quite dead. They shuffled around, their clothes sopping wet, water dripping off their hair. They were pitiful.
All my life I’ve dealt with depression. Years ago I realized depression was my oldest companion, practically a friend, as familiar as an old worn sweater.
But seeing the zombies slowly shuffling around in their sodden clothes on this dreary and rainy Michigan November day, I let go of some my depressive, always a slacker feeling. No matter what my situation is, I’m not one of them, a lifeless horror whose only desire is to eat live human flesh. I still have life, and hope, and feelings. I can think. I can laugh and cry. I’m sti
ll a man.
Those thoughts made me glad to be alive.
I can’t get a grasp on what, if any, intelligence they have. Even dogs know to come out of the rain. But zombies don’t seem to care about the weather. I’ve noticed they move slower as the days get colder—what will happen when we have a deep freeze?
I feel like I have a day of reprieve, one last day to be a confirmed bachelor without having to explain anything I do. I can fart as loud and often as I want, I can belch, I can pick my nose or scratch my butt, and no one will care. I can watch porn. This may be my last chance to be lonely.
That reminded me of a couple lines from a William Carlos Williams poem:
I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!
And yet I’m giving up my loneliness.
Tonight I’m going to have another salad, and will splurge with a bourbon and Coke. I put two cans of Coke in the root cellar to chill. I’m not going to be stingy with the bourbon when she’s here, but I’m also not going to offer it to her every freaking day. I do have a limited supply.
I’m going to enjoy myself and do whatever I feel like tonight and live to excess without guilt. Starting tomorrow, I’ll have to be a nice guy for who knows how long.
I figure at times I’ll regret my decision. My only question is: how long before the thought runs through my mind, What was I thinking?!
November 23rd
Another day that may prove pivotal in many ways. Michelle moved in, I shot a zombie in the head (now they’re swarming again), and Michelle got frisky.
I woke up with a headache. Not bad enough to incapacitate me, but bad enough for me to regret that last bourbon . . . or two. Sometimes I don’t mind mild hangovers; they prove I can let go of the leash now and then. I believe in moderation—in moderation.
Love in the Age of Zombies (Book 1): My Zombie Honeymoon Page 7