Aftertaste

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “Come on,” she said, “anyone with half a brain can see: zombies are taking over the world!”

  “Intriguing . . .”

  “Boring!”

  “Um . . . uh . . .”

  “And not by some meteorite or hate virus,” Steph said, “no. These zombies are taking over one bookstore and one Jane Austen novel at a time.”

  “Titillating,” the reporter said, “introspective. Why do you think this ‘zombie outbreak’ hasn’t spread here?”

  Steph laughed. “What, to this little pissant town? Are you kidding me?!”

  “Hey,” said Kenny’s mother, “show some respect! Yeah, we may have some pissants here, but . . . that’s not the point!”

  “Look,” Steph said, directing the reporter’s camera to one of the bookcases. “You see that shelf over there? The one that says ‘Made Right Here in Oregon’?”

  “Excellent,” the reporter said, “yes.”

  “Well, there’s this book of poetry about vegetables over there, and it sells better in this town than Dusk ever will.”

  “Hmph,” the reporter said, looking up from his camera’s digital viewfinder. “Good series. Love glitz-vamps. But don’t you think the outbreak’s getting closer?”

  Steph tried to answer, but again, the reporter butted in to elaborate. “Take our viewership in the next county, for example. The station’s losing ratings left and right over there, ever since that stupid zombie show came on TV.”

  Steph crossed her arms. “I like that show.”

  “Yeah, well . . . it’s forcing me to cover this story. That’s why I came to talk with Kenneth, actually. I figured if I report about zombies, maybe people will actually watch the news.”

  Kenny’s mom, in a desperate attempt to steal everyone’s attention, suddenly stuck her whole face in the camera and said, “I brought boxes and boxes and boxes of books! Come get one so I can retire!!”

  “Or at least make your money back . . .” Steph said.

  The reporter had to pry Kenny’s mother off his equipment and then wipe her lipstick off his lens. “I guess that’s a wrap,” he said, and started to pack up.

  Kenny’s mom said, “When will this air?”

  “Probably the six o’clock news,” the reporter replied.

  “Tonight?”

  “That’s what that means, yes,” answered Steph.

  Kenny’s mother ignored her. “Oooh, that’s perfect! Kenneth’s signing goes till eight!”

  A strange look came over the reporter’s face, as if something had just occurred to him. “Hmm,” he said, “interesting. Eight, you say?”

  “Yes,” his mom said. “Didn’t you read the press release I sent to the Internet?”

  “Eight,” the reporter repeated, as if committing it to memory. “Eight. Well, maybe my story will . . . I’ll see if I can’t . . . help us make a killing—I mean . . . you . . . make one.”

  He left quickly after that, casting a few weird looks back at Kenny and his book, and checking his watch, as if he were late.

  After about 6:50 that night, people started trickling into the bookstore. They had seen Kenny’s interview on the news and had driven from the next county over to buy his novel, they said.

  “My son’s so smart!” his mother bragged as he scribbled his illegible signature in a few copies of his book. “He’s the next Stephen Coonts!”

  “Stephen Coonts?” Steph asked, raising an eyebrow. “The guy who writes adventure thrillers?”

  “No,” Kenny’s mother said. “The guy who . . . writes those horror ones.”

  “Dean Koontz?” Steph asked.

  “Don’t be absurd. He’s not a horror writer.”

  “Stephen King,” one of the customers chimed in.

  “Yes!” Kenny’s mother said, pointing him out. Then she gave Steph a snotty look. “See? At least someone here has some smarts.”

  Soon, Kenny’s line of zombie fans stretched out the door, and Steph got pissy; she was so busy manning the register she didn’t have time for a smoke.

  Kenny’s hand began to cramp from all the signatures. His mother, meanwhile, stood on a chair, slinging her purse around, screaming, “Woo hoo!!”

  Some of the customers bought multiple copies and cradled them to their chests. They said stuff like “I just devour zombie books” or “Big smart author like you, I’d just love to pick your brain.”

  As the customers filled the store, and then the whole parking lot, their excited chatter began to take on a weird rhythm, like a chant.

  “Do you hear that?” Kenny’s mom asked, cupping her hand behind her ear. “What’s that they’re saying? Brians? Who’s this Brian I keep hearing about?”

  “Uh-oh,” Kenny said, realizing something.

  “What?” his mother asked. “Is your hand cramping again? What is it? Talk to me, sweetheart!!”

  He showed her the empty boxes that once held his books.

  She hesitated to grin. “You’re out?”

  Confused blather started circulating through the crowd. “What’d they say, he’s coming out?”

  “No, he’s out.”

  “What? Of Brians!!!?”

  “It looks like it,” Steph said, sounding relieved and eager for a smoke. “Sorry, everyone, we’re all out!”

  “But . . . we drove all the way from the next county over!”

  “Hey, that’s right! Where’s our Brians!!!?”

  People started shouting and getting angry. Some pushed their way forward in line, making demands.

  One girl who had sores all over her face and smelled like cat pee suddenly grabbed a copy of the book out of another customer’s hand.

  “Hey!” the customer yelled. “She took my Brians!!!”

  “Brians!!!—Brians!!!” everyone shouted. “We want more Brians!!!” They started pushing and tearing at each other to get at Kenny, who sat totally petrified while his mother continued slinging her purse and singing, “Wooo!”

  “All right, enough!” Steph shouted. “It’s closing time!” She tried to herd the customers out the front entrance, but they started pushing her back.

  The girl with the sores slipped past her and got ahold of Kenny’s shirt. “Brians!!!” she said, and then, for no reason at all, she bit him. Right on the arm.

  “Kenny!” Steph cried. She tried pulling the sickly girl off of him, tried to save his life.

  “Stop it!” Kenny’s mother said, and she beat Steph off with her gigantic purse. “She’s his number one fan!”

  As his mom struck again and again with her bag, more personal effects went flying: Smarties, a can of pepper spray, her collection of Kenny’s baby teeth.

  Steph fell to the floor.

  Kenny’s mom raised her purse, ready to bash in Steph’s head and add red highlights to her hair. But then Steph got ahold of the fallen pepper spray and spritzed Kenny’s mother right in the face.

  “Aaarrrgghh!” His mom covered her eyes and backed up as Steph drove everyone outside with the intense repellent.

  Steph slammed the doors shut. Blind, coughing, puking, and watering at the eyes, the customers immediately surged forward and pounded on the glass.

  “Brians!!! Brians!!!”

  Kenny’s mother was outside, pressed against the window, saying, “Help me—help your mother!”

  “I can’t hold them forever!” Steph said as the doors shook and lurched against her hands. “Kenny, quick—push that bookcase over here! We need to block the door!”

  “Kenneth,” his mother moaned, “it hurts.”

  Kenny looked from his mother to Steph, unsure of what to do. He had never expected to be this popular.

  “Kenneth!” Steph said. “Do it!”

  “Um!” He stood up and helped her block the door with the bookcase full of local vegetable poetry.

  “But I’m your mother!” Kenny’s mother yelled at him. “I pushed you out of my—”

  “She’s his mother?!” one of the customers said, catching on. “She’s his mom!�
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  “Hey,” another one said, “maybe she’s got some Brians!!!”

  They started tearing at her purse, spilling the rest of her Smarties, so that all she had left were Dum Dums.

  “Get off me, get off—what do you want?!”

  “Brians!!!” they moaned, “Brians!!!”

  “What—who’s Brian?!”

  “They mean ‘brains’!” called Steph.

  “Brains?” Kenny’s mother asked. “Brains?! I don’t have any brains!”

  But the zombie fans weren’t listening. They grabbed her arms and legs and pulled her every which way until she came apart, as if her body were nothing but noodles. Blood and guts and body parts flew everywhere, and her dismembered head hit the glass with a wet thud, leaving a lipstick kiss on the glass.

  Kenny moaned; he looked away.

  The zombie fans redoubled their effort on the doors, which began to crack under their fists. The bookshelf of vegetable poetry began to budge, screeching across the tiles.

  “Come on!” Steph said, grabbing Kenny’s hand. She led him to the back of the store, to the roof access ladder. But as the two of them were climbing up, the front doors shattered and customers rushed in.

  They grabbed Kenny’s legs while he waited for Steph to unlock the hatch to the roof. They pulled at him, and his feet slipped off the ladder.

  He hung from a rung while the zombie fans accidentally pantsed him. His jeans hit the top guy in the face, and the man fell, crashing into other fans on his way down. They all landed on the floor. Not a second afterward, they were clambering back up the rungs.

  “Got it!” Steph said, finally opening the lock. She pulled Kenny onto the roof and shut the hatch just as the zombie fans tried to reach through. She slammed the little door on a few stray fingers until they cracked and slid back. Then she sat on the hatch, which began to buck wildly beneath her.

  “A little help here!” she said to Kenny.

  “Um . . .”

  She yanked him down and made him sit on the door with her, back-to-back.

  “Oh my God . . .” she said, looking out over the parking lot. It was completely filled with people and cars. And more and more zombie fans were pouring in by the carload.

  “Why are they doing this?!” Kenny asked.

  Steph gave the crowd a hard, evaluating look. “Because,” she said. “They’ve got nothing better to do. They don’t have a life.”

  They sat in stunned silence for several moments before Steph pointed something out. “Hey, look! That reporter!”

  The man with the camera stood on top of a news van in the parking lot, shooting the action while shouting, “Bleeding! Leading! Better than that stupid TV show!”

  “That bastard!” Steph said. “He planned this! Just so people would watch the news!”

  Absently, she brushed at a candy wrapper stuck in her hair. It crinkled and fell, and Kenny noticed that it was one of his mother’s, a Dum Dum.

  Suddenly he got an idea. He stood up, and the zombie fans below them almost threw Steph off the hatch.

  “Kenny, don’t be stupid—sit down!”

  “Uh . . . wait!” He ran to the edge of the roof and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Hey! Hey, you!”

  He caught the attention of a few people near the front of the horde. The reporter noticed, too, and aimed his camera up at the roof. “Interesting development!”

  Kenny suddenly remembered that he’d lost his pants, and so he stood there in his undies with a blush. But, remembering Steph’s strength, he bulled on.

  “There!” he said, pointing at the reporter. “He’s my mom! He’s got Brains!!!”

  The whole crowd fell silent and frowned up at him, as if something he’d said didn’t make any sense. One of the men asked, “What . . . what are brains?”

  “Uh,” Kenny said, “I meant Brians!!! He’s got some, right over there!”

  “Oh,” the frowning man said. And then the whole crowd was screaming again, this time headed for Kenny’s “mother” standing atop the van.

  “Wait!” the reporter said, still filming for some reason. “He’s lying! I’m a man! I don’t have any . . . I don’t have any Brians!!!”

  But the zombie fans were beyond reason. They grabbed the reporter’s feet, and he kicked at them, still holding the camera to his eye, even as the fans dragged him down and tore into him.

  For some reason, the girl with the sores bit into his skull—bit right through the bone somehow, as if it were nothing more than a melon. And then she said, “Brians!!!”

  Kenny looked away as everyone dug in and scooped out the bloody gray matter, going, “Where?! Where’s the Brians!!!?”

  Steph yelped as the hatch continued to jump beneath her. “You’re still not helping!” she told Kenny.

  “Oh!” He ran over and sat down with her, and, back-to-back, they both rode it out.

  Slowly, the zombie fans inside caught word that someone in the parking lot actually had some Brians!!! in his head. So they all climbed down the ladder to make their way outside.

  Kenny and Steph sat there for several moments, just leaning against each other and feeling each other breathe.

  “You know,” Steph said out of the blue, “I’m actually . . . the writer of the Dusk series.”

  “Huh?” Kenny asked. It was a weird thing for her to say, given the circumstances. But for some reason—perhaps it was shock—Kenny was completely okay with it. “But, uh . . . I thought you, uh—”

  “Hated glitz-vamps?” she asked, finishing his sentence like his mother always used to do. “Well, Kenny . . . now you know why. I have a five-book contract to fulfill.”

  “How come, uh . . . no one ever—”

  “Knows it’s me?”

  He nodded.

  “Because I write under a pen name,” she said, “and I hire an actress who pretends to be the real writer. It’s pretty convenient, actually.”

  “Uh . . .”

  “But then why do I work here?” she asked, practically reading his mind. “Because. I like it here. I like it more than the job where I make millions of dollars, quite honestly.” She took a deep breath and said, “I’ve never told anyone that before. You sure you still want me to edit your books?”

  Kenny frowned and rubbed at his arm, where the girl with the sores had left her teeth marks. “I’ve got a . . . secret too,” he said.

  “What, that your mother brought you back from the dead to write books, so she could retire?”

  “Um . . . how’d you—”

  “I read your bio, dummy. It was right on the back of your book.”

  “Oh.” He rubbed his arm again. “I think . . . one of those zombie girls bit me.”

  Steph didn’t respond for a second. Then, sounding mildly concerned, she asked, “Does this mean you’re going to eat me?”

  “Uh . . .” he said, trying to think. “Are you going to . . . suck me?”

  Steph, still leaning against him, burst into laughter, and Kenny liked how it felt.

  “Maybe you do have a Brian after all,” she said, and he laughed too. Then they both laughed together.

  They laughed until they cried.

  Still Life

  KEN LILLIE-PAETZ

  When I found the apple I dreamed that my oil painting would be perfect. If you cleared your mind and thought of the world’s most perfect and delicious apple you would be picturing the very piece of fruit I had chosen.

  I hoped that with my skills as a painter I could produce a composition that would capture the very essence of “perfect appley-ness.”

  Countless line drawings were created before I even dared attempt to work on canvas. Then I found myself second-guessing the quality of my art supplies and there were several trips back and forth to Michaels before I felt okay.

  The indecision over whether I should go with my usual turpentine-diluted oil paint for the first layer or just skip ahead by using acrylic caused a panic attack so severe that I had to walk away from my subject, make a
doctor’s appointment and renew a prescription for lorazepam.

  The second layer took forever before it was done. The first layer had dissolved beneath, allowing both layers to come to life in terms of tone and color. Yet, despite the fact that I was getting closer to completion, each brushstroke I made was now an agony of self-doubt. Every scrape with the palette knife was like a palette knife in my heart.

  When the painting was finished it looked like it could have been produced by one of the Dutch masters. Despite how it would never scream “perfect appley-ness” or look good enough to eat, it was without question a faultless rendering of the subject—an apple that had rotted and dried up.

  I placed the artwork on the wall behind its subject and felt satisfied.

  Then I walked past the seated skeleton to look at my last painting. I was sure that Still Life with Apple had turned out just as well as Nude on a Chair.

  A Day in the Life

  SHERRILYN KENYON

  “Ding dong, the bitch is dead.”

  Elliott Lawson looked up from her BlackBerry e-mail to laugh at her assistant Lesley Dane. “And there is much rejoicing.”

  Dressed in a pink sweater and floral skirt, Lesley flounced around Elliott’s tiny office with a wide smile before she added yet another bulging manuscript to the top of the mountain of manuscripts in Elliott’s in-box. Was it just her or did that thing grow higher by the heartbeat? It was like some bad horror movie.

  The stack that wouldn’t die.

  Lesley continued. “Just think, no more e-mails with her calling us names and complaining about everything from title to synopsis to . . . you know, everything.”

  That was the upside.

  The downside? “And no more selling three million copies on the release date either.” While Helga East had been the biggest pain in the ass to ever write a book, her thrillers had set so many records for sales that her unexpected death left a huge hole in their publishing program. One that would take twenty or more authors to fill.

  Elliott’s stomach cramped at that reality and at the fact that she’d just lost her star pony in the publishing race. “What are we going to do?”