I Fell in Love with a Zombie

by Sean Kennedy

  IT TOOK me close to an hour to boil enough water to make a hot bath for him. I wiped the sweat off my brow and turned to face him in the small bathroom. “Okay, big boy. Get those clothes off. I think we’ll have to burn them.”

  I was only joking. He was wearing different clothes from yesterday. I don’t know what use it was, seeing his body was still in need of cleaning.

  He stared at me.

  “Don’t be shy. I’m going to have to wash you, so I’m going to see you naked anyway. And for fuck’s sake, we’ve had sex. I’ve seen every bit of you before, and from every different angle. I’ve seen bits of you that your mother never even saw.”

  At least, I hope she hadn’t.

  “Are you scared I’m going to find you irresistible? Sorry, you look like you’ve seen better days.”

  My faux belligerence helped him break out of his funk. He started undressing. I looked away at first to give him the privacy he seemed to need, but as it started taking so long, I gave up and said, “Here, otherwise the water will get cold.”

  Funny how familiar this action seemed, standing before Dave and helping him out of his clothes. He allowed himself to be pulled and poked at like a mannequin about to go in a display window. I hid my distaste well at the stale and musty aroma his body seemed to give off. Not the zombie smell of decayed flesh, just somebody who hadn’t bathed in a while. I wonder how people ever procreated before showers, or during wartime, and figured that they probably got used to it.

  And after all, weren’t we in some kind of war now?

  Levels of tenderness increased the more flesh that was bared. When he stood before me only in briefs, I hesitated. Dave looked down at me; his expressions were harder to read than his grunts. I shrugged inwardly and gently pulled him down. Now that he was fully naked, I could feel my body responding. Not in a sexual way—I hate to sound so prissy, but the dirt and the grime quelled any arousal. But it was like my body had become one pure sense memory, awakening to the remembrances of Dave’s own body and what it used to inspire within me.

  I shook it off. “In the tub.”

  He complied, and sank down beneath the water. I poured in a liberal amount of ghastly looking bubble bath. It was the kind of stuff given to you in a basket at Christmas time by someone who didn’t know your tastes very well. As it was unopened, I could tell that it wasn’t exactly to Dave’s liking either. Was it an eccentric aunt? Maybe Eric’s mother? An office gift from the Secret Santa pool?

  I found a washcloth beneath the sink. “Lean forward,” I told him, lathering up the cloth with soap.

  I started with his back. The dirt came away with only slight exertion. His skin was flushed from the heat of the water and the pressure of the cloth. As I got near his neck, I uncovered the row of freckles that spread across his shoulders. I used to drive him crazy by kissing them one by one. He thought it took too long, but I liked to mark them with my lips, the voice in my head repeating to itself mine mine mine.

  Dave grunted, wondering why I had stopped.

  “Sorry,” I murmured, and began washing him again. I picked up his left arm, and scrubbed it clean. As I got to his fingers, he intertwined them with mine briefly. I ran my thumb over the back of his hand, and then dropped it so I could start on the right arm. I felt warm, and it wasn’t from the steam building up in the bathroom. The more I cleaned him, the more it seemed that the Dave I had known was coming back to me. It’s the understatement of the year to say it was confusing for me.

  “I’m just going to start on your hair, now.”

  I took the bottle of shampoo off the shelf above the tub. I squeezed practically half of the bottle over his dark hair. “Close your eyes,” I told him as if I were speaking to a kid who needed to be reminded that shampoo could sting. I laughed. “Was I always this bossy?”

  Dave gave a strangled chuckle. It was an unsettling noise, but I guess no more so than his present pattern of speech.

  I lathered his hair and began massaging his scalp. He sagged against the back of the tub, which made it a bit more difficult for me, but he seemed to be relaxing, so I just put up with it. The suds were turning gray, which was gross, but at least I knew I was getting him clean. I picked up a mug I had brought upstairs with me and began rinsing the soap out.

  “That must feel better,” I said.

  He grunted in agreement.

  I moved on to his chest. Another familiar object. Those lush pink nipples nestled amongst fine brown hairs that spread across the skin and ran down to his navel. Both stiffened against the roughness of the cloth, and Dave closed his eyes for a moment.

  “You’re looking a lot more like yourself,” I said, and he had no idea of the weight behind what I was saying. “Maybe tomorrow I could shave that beard.”

  He nodded.

  His legs were next. He always thought they were chicken-legs, but they were amazingly strong and could wrap around me like a vice when I was on top, or be startlingly flexible when I was beneath him. I used to be surprised at the inventive positions he could get himself into while he fucked me to high heaven.

  I tried to drive those thoughts out of my mind as the cloth crossed over his thighs. Here was the elephant in the room—no pun intended—that I couldn’t avoid. “Well,” I said lightly. “Home base. Don’t be nervous. I’ve touched it before.”

  Dave looked at me. He didn’t grunt, but his eyes were downcast. As if he was embarrassed.

  “Hey,” I said softly. “I know I’m being stupid, but you know I just do that, right? It’s okay.”

  And I reached below the water again, and when my hands touched his groin, I almost pulled them out straightaway. He was hard. Guess the zombie virus didn’t affect every part of the body.

  Was that why he was being so quiet?

  “You should have seen me this morning,” I said casually. “Funny how things can be so normal and still be the same old shit when everything else around us has changed.”

  Dave grunted.

  It just proved we knew nothing about this virus. Could zombies breed? Did they still produce sperm? I couldn’t believe I was thinking so much about zombie spunk. But this was Dave, and I wanted to know just how much of him still was in there. He was still Dave, I could tell. But it was like motor functions were screwy—how could simple things we took for granted like walking be so jerky and puppet-like but then shift into sleek killing mode?

  And why did Dave still think like Dave, while other zombies seemed to be driven more by basic needs?

  I was no scientist, but I was starting to wish I had been one. If we could find the answers, then maybe we could stop this.

  I helped Dave up, and rinsed him over with fresh water. Once I had him dried and in fresh clothes, you wouldn’t have been able to tell just by looking at him that he was a zombie. He smelled good, too. I was starting to feel that old pull in my chest again.

  Mike, I thought. I’m so sorry, but can you blame me? I knew him. And I miss you. And I’m lonely. And scared. It’s like what I knew about you both has merged into him.

  “You look good spruced up,” I told him.

  His mouth opened and closed again, and he squinted, concentrating. “Fffff… annnks.”

  It was the first legible word I had heard from him besides my name. And damn if I didn’t feel like I could start crying.

  But I just grinned at him and said, “You’re welcome.”

  IX

  WAS HE actually relearning everything? Did the virus wipe out part of their memory while enhancing other parts of the body? Could Dave learn to speak again?

  I hoped so. I was starting to get sick of the sound of my own voice.

  We spent the next week or so in his house, and we lived pretty comfortably. Dave went foraging for food every day but made me stay behind. Although he obviously couldn’t articulate it, I knew he meant that it was safer for him to go alone because he usually ran into some of his zombie brethren. And they would smell the stink of human on me. But not on him, no matter how cl
ean he now was.

  I shaved his beard, and the illusion of the old Dave was complete. Of course, it was an illusion.

  But an illusion can fool you if you let it. Old feelings were being reawakened in me, even though the rational part of my brain outlined all the reasons why and how it was a bad thing. But the heart is an entirely different organ to the mind, and it likes to flip it the bird every so often and tell it to never darken its doorstep again.

  There were moments I could almost fool myself that our lives were normal. Then I would hear a groan from stage left and look out onto the street (carefully shielding myself with the curtains) and see a zombie lurching across my line of vision. Or I would say something to Dave, and instead of a conversation, I would get a series of grunts. I would think of how nice it would be to meet up with friends and have a real coffee somewhere, and remember that they were all most likely dead.

  I came to rely upon Dave’s presence. When he was out finding food, I was nervous in the house by myself. I would only calm down when I heard him coming up the steps of the porch, and would check that it really was him. I began to read aloud in the evenings; Dave had pushed a book at me one night, and I realized that he couldn’t make out the words. We stuck to more lighthearted books; our lives were tragic enough without delving into other peoples’ miseries.

  Our sense of peace didn’t last long. After about a week, I was waiting at home for Dave to return when I heard somebody fly up the steps so fast I was sure it wasn’t a zombie.

  But it was Dave, in that frenetic hyper-active mode the zombies could go into when they were on the prowl. Except this time, Dave was the intended victim.

  His fellow zombies must have finally intuited that he wasn’t the same as them, and they had attacked. He was covered in scratches and blood was running freely as he entered the hall and started barricading the door. It was useless to speak to him; it was pretty obvious what was going down.

  Through the glass of the door, I could see shapes racing up the path. Bodies began throwing themselves against the door, and once they realized there was some sort of makeshift barrier, there was the smashing of windows from within the lounge as they found an easier entrance.

  We had to leave everything behind. I grabbed Dave’s hand and we ran for it. Down the hall, out the back door, over Eric’s grave and toward the fence. Dave easily crossed it as if he was a pole-vaulter, and I was left behind. I could hear commotion within the house; it wouldn’t be long before they knew where we had headed. Panting wildly, I scaled the fence, but my feet tangled at the top of it and I fell heavily to the yard on the other side. Dave was waiting for me, but I had to help myself up.

  “Come on,” I whispered, still trying to catch my breath. “We need a car.”

  We ran to the garage of his neighbor’s house through a side gate. I didn’t leave the garage door open, as I wanted to keep us hidden for as long as we could. Thankfully, the driver’s door was unlocked, and I jumped in, unlocking the passenger’s side for Dave. I fiddled beneath the dash, slicing my fingers open, as I had to rip the wires apart rather than using my normal scissors and screwdriver. I prayed the battery wasn’t dead, as a struggling motor would let our attackers know exactly where we were.

  It didn’t turn over immediately when I activated the ignition, but I pumped the gas and it lethargically spat into life.

  “Hold on,” I commanded, and threw the car into reverse.

  We smashed through the garage door, leaving a car-sized hole. The tires squealed on the road; rubber burned when I threw the car into gear as we were still moving.

  Zombies appeared on either side of us, trying to claw their way through the doors and windows to get at us. The back window exploded as a fist came through it, and I felt flying glass cut my neck.

  I screamed in fury and hit the pedal. The car tore forward, bringing zombies down around it. Others gave chase, but even with the added burst of their adrenaline, we soon left them behind.

  In the car, there was nothing but the sound of the engine and our panicked breathing.

  I couldn’t speak. But I noticed that Dave’s body was now coming down from its zombie-fight mode. Eventually I said, more so to reassure myself, “We’re okay. We’re okay.”

  I don’t think either of us felt okay, though. Dave had left his house behind, every possession he had ever owned. He had even left Eric behind; no longer would he feel him near.

  And me? My only physical remnant of Mike, a picture I had carried ever since this had begun, was still in my wallet. In my backpack, back at Dave’s house. As was the only photo I had of my family.

  There would be no going back now.

  Dave was the only link I had to my previous life, and I was his.

  At least we had each other. But that wasn’t much comfort right at that moment, as I felt overwhelmed by what our lives had become and would seem to be from this moment on.

  X

  WE CHANGED cars two towns away from Drake, where there seemed to be nothing alive at all. We were getting low on gas, and I wanted to put as much distance between us and Drake as possible.

  I wanted an armored tank, but had to settle upon another SUV.

  Dave obviously couldn’t drive, so it was all up to me to get us from one place to another. I was beginning to wonder what we would do once we ran out of land to travel upon. Could I learn to navigate a boat, and get us out of here for good? Could we become political refugees and be taken in somewhere the virus hadn’t spread?

  Maybe if it was just me. But no country, no matter how sympathetic, would let in a confirmed zombie. There was no way we could pass Dave off as Rain Man; all they would have to do is threaten him or agitate him and he would go into fight mode. The gig would be up within minutes. And what then?

  Death, most likely. To protect everybody else in that land.

  The obvious answer would be to leave Dave behind. But it was a moot point; I didn’t know how to sail a boat.

  Plus, I was already starting to believe that I would find it impossible to abandon him. He had saved my life, many times over. And I wanted him in it, no matter how little or much time we had left.

  I wish I knew whether he thought the same. I suspected as much, but confirmation would be nice.

  Funny how in the face of little else emotions can ramp up so fast and so intensely.

  The SUV got us across state lines, but as we rounded a corner, there was a four car-pile up that was strewn across both sides of the road. We were going so fast that even when I threw on the brakes I knew we were going to make it five. There was that sickening sound of tires screeching combined with metal crunching against metal. I could see the car before me crush like an accordion as the mighty force of the stolen SUV tore through it. Both Dave and I were flung forward, and to be honest, I think I blacked out for a moment, because the next thing I knew, my head was on the steering wheel and Dave was shaking me.

  “’M’okay,” I slurred. “You?”

  He groaned, and my head was too fuzzy to get the specifics of his tone. I winced, and then wrinkled my nose as a strong odor suddenly came to me.

  Gas.

  “Shit, we’ve got to get out of here!” I yelled.

  My door was wedged within that of the car we had crashed into, but Dave’s was free. He jumped out, and I scrambled after him. One of the cars was on fire and we ran, Dave stumbling along while dragging one foot heavily.

  The explosion knocked us down to the ground as the cars went up as one, a dirty orange bloom of fire reaching toward the sky. I could feel the heat on my back from where I lay face down on the slag of the road. I looked over at Dave; he seemed fine.

  “One day,” I said, “we’ll find a place free of zombies, and we won’t have to move anymore, and we won’t ever be in this situation again.”

  Dave grunted with tired hope. I helped him up.

  Looking around us, I pointed out a farmhouse in the distance, a stark relief against the rather flat landscape. “We can probably crash there fo
r the night. Hopefully there’s no other guests. And where there’s a farm, there has to be some kind of vehicle.”

  I chuckled at the thought of us having to drive to the next town on a tractor. Dave looked at me, maybe wanting to know the joke, but I just shrugged and started walking.

  It was a warm day, and I stripped off my jacket and tied it around my waist. I was sweating by the time we reached the dirt road that led the way to the farmhouse.

  And we weren’t alone.

  A man was coming down that road toward us. Dave groaned.

  The stranger was walking normally, however, and a dog was following him. I could tell it was an older dog as it struggled behind its owner and didn’t rush at us, barking to protect him.

  Then I saw that he was carrying a rifle.

  “Stay behind me,” I instructed Dave. “He’s not a zombie. No offense, but zombies don’t carry guns.”

  I didn’t want the man to shoot first and ask questions later. Especially when he figured out just what exactly my traveling companion was.

  The man raised his rifle. He was older than us, probably in his sixties. He was grizzled, and wore a blue sweat-stained trucker’s hat that shielded his eyes. “You just stay right there!” he yelled.

  What made me wary was how nervous he was. A nervous trigger finger could spell our doom.

  I held up my hands, intuitive knowledge learnt from years of watching cop shows on television. “We mean you no harm!”

  “Oh yeah?” the farmer cried. “Is it you two responsible for that up there?” He jerked the gun to point beyond us.

  I looked back; smoke was drifting across the sky, and orange flames could still be seen licking the remains of the cars.

  “Yes,” I admitted. “We didn’t see the pile-up until it was too late. We crashed.”

  “It’s the end of days,” the farmer said, “and there’s still damage being done.”

  Great. A religious whackjob. But then, was he wrong? It certainly felt like the end of the world, there was no denying that.