CHAPTER FIFTEEN

OURS WERE THE only footprints on the snow-covered asphalt, and the trail we left behind was dragging and heavy as if we were skiing, not walking. We passed the subdivision’s sentries: two concrete lions atop two concrete pillars with the word KING’S etched in one and COURT in the other.

King’s Court was a typical housing development-all the trees had been razed to pour foundations and only a few homeowners had bothered to plant new ones. The houses were a combination of aluminum siding and brick, with a maximum of three floor plans to choose from. There were no sidewalks or corner stores, but there were basketball hoops in driveways, plastic play sets in backyards, and two-car garages. Inside the houses we found Berber and shag carpets, linoleum kitchens with faux-granite countertops, and more bathrooms than necessary.

We wandered up and down Bishop Lane and Queen Street, through Knight’s Crossing and Crown Drive, zombies on a giant chessboard of middle-class mediocrity. We ransacked the houses, hoping for a whiff of human or pet and searching for supplies.

In a two-story Tudor on Pawn Way, Joan found an all-terrain stroller for Isaac. It was one of those trendy carriages, a three-wheeler with a Gore-tex awning and shock absorbers. Designed for the active mother trying to lose that baby weight, it used to cost more than a beat-up station wagon. It was free now.

Guts lifted Isaac from his sled and strapped him into the stroller, fussing over the baby like a mother hen.

Although Isaac could walk, he preferred not to and I didn’t blame him. Like free will, walking is overrated. Plus, the tot wasn’t very good at it, wobbling around like a drunken devil, and we all enjoyed coddling and protecting him.

We believed Isaac was the future.

There was movement at the end of the cul-de-sac, a human scurrying from Rubbermaid trash can to Ford Focus like a wild animal. We picked up the scent, bite sites tingling, and convened in the middle of the street.

Everyone except Eve, that is. She took off after the creature, arms raised, helmet on sideways, the ear protector covering her left eye. Ros was right: Eve was a liability. Her presence did not contribute to our cause; in fact, she undermined our credibility. It was like allowing a convicted rapist to join NOW. I had to face the facts: She was incapable of learning. A mindless sheep.

We let Eve go on her stupid march. With hand gestures and nods we planned our own attack.

“Looks like a child,” Ros said. “Feral.”

Saint Joan nodded. Guts jumped up and down, clapping his hands and rubbing his duct-taped belly.

That Guts, the pixie, he was no longer black; he no longer bore the cross of his race. Annie, Ros, and Joan were no longer white, and neither was I. In zombiehood, race is erased. Brothers and sisters of the brain, we are gray, the ultimate race, a nation of nations. We are completely homogeneous. As a society we would be quite peaceful; all of the differences we used to fight over-religion, race, oil, the economy-are wiped out. We are a single unit, a focused target audience, a marketer’s dream.

If we were five zombies with consciousness, how many more of us existed? One out of every hundred? Out of a thousand? Ten thousand? How many in total? Enough for a revolution, that much I knew.

A gunshot rang out. We looked at Annie; her guns were holstered.

Eve was walking down the street like a crippled cowboy in a western. The Great Brain Robbery. A Fistful of Viscera. The Quick and the Undead. The Good, the Bad, and the Zombie. Another few paces and she might turn and shoot, spurs twinkling and jingling.

There was another shot, and this time I heard it ping Eve’s helmet. She continued walking, totally unaware.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid zombie,” Ros said.

We took cover in a garage. Next to a weed whacker was a pile of dog bones, matted fur still stuck to them. Ros picked up a rib-it had been a big dog, maybe a German shepherd judging from the hair-and gnawed on it. He handed Isaac a piece.

“Reverse situation here,” he said. “Me chewing on a dog bone. Like a dog. With his bone.” He crunched. “Crazy goddamn world.”

I bent down and put my arm around Guts. I poked his tummy, pointed at the wagon in the corner-a classic Red Flyer-then shook my finger, which flopped and wiggled, held on by nothing more than Krazy Glue, at Eve.

“Jesus,” Ros said. “Captain wants the kid to save her. Lovestruck fool.”

I shook my fist at Ros. He stuck his tongue out at me. It looked like sloughed snake skin.

Saint Joan tightened the helmet straps under Guts’s chin. The urchin looked like a Pound Puppy plushie; his eyes were milky and plastic, the lashes caked with dirt and soot in such a way that they separated, appearing lush and long, like Tammy Faye Bakker eyelashes.

I gave him a little push and he was off.

“Suicide mission,” Ros said once Guts was out of earshot, halfway down the street, running as fast as he could, the little red wagon wheels squeaking.

Eve didn’t even turn at the clatter. In her defense, she only had the one ear. Guts took bullets to his guts, his chest; nothing slowed him down. It was like the Iraq War footage we all saw on television before the zombie outbreak-the intrepid American soldier in the new urban battlefield, executing a daring guerrilla mission, dodging enemy fire, kicking down doors, searching for insurgents.

I suppose that war’s over. Guess what? Zombies won.

In no time Guts reached Eve and rammed the wagon into the backs of her knees, causing her to fall into it. He turned and trotted toward us, Eve spilling over the sides of the wagon, her feet and stump scraping the street. The shots stopped.

I imagined triumphant music. “Pomp and Circumstance” or something military. Guts made a victory fist and pumped it in the air. I reimagined the scene in slow motion.

To put the brains on the icing on the cake, the sniper made an error: He poked his head out the window of a three-story brick monstrosity.

We knew exactly where he was. Which house, which window. We knew his ball cap was green and he sported a full, dark beard. The man was trapped in a suburban nightmare. And this was no metaphorical trap like before the epidemic. As in: Oh! The tragedy of being owned by your possessions! Cry for me because I am rich yet my soul is poor! Please. This time it was literal. There was no exit.

Of course, everything is literal now. The metaphor is as dead as I am.

And I didn’t want to eat Green Cap Sniper. Allow me to rephrase that: I very much wanted to eat Green Cap Sniper. I was horny for his brains. If I was Zombie Verlaine, then he was Rimbaud.

But-and here’s the delicate turn, my narrative’s volta -he was worth more to us alive.

According to the history books, that’s what Che Guevara-revolutionary Christ figure, beret-wearing silkscreen on a thousand T-shirts-that’s what he told the CIA before they shot him, before they cut off his hands postmortem. Not that it mattered.

There’s nothing new under the sun.

I communicated my plan to the gang, pantomiming the attack on Green Cap, mimicking a feeding, then shaking my head no. Vehemently. Ros agreed.

“Muzzle her,” he said, jerking a thumb at Eve, who was still sprawled in the wagon, lowing in the alto range.

I got in the car and acted human. I adjusted my pretend ball cap and put my hands on the steering wheel at six and nine o’clock. Guts hopped in the passenger side. The keys were in the cup holder and I thought, What the heck, maybe we don’t need Green Cap. After all I’ve learned in my new incarnation, maybe I can drive. It was a Crown Victoria, an old person’s car, fully automatic, designed to float like a boat and guzzle gas as if the oil supply were endless.