I’m looking at the red ring of fresh, shiny tooth marks on my right palm, some highlighted by small dots of blood. Not a lot of blood; in fact, quite little. But enough to have me concerned. It’s times like this I get nostalgic for tetanus. Remember tetanus? When you were a kid and you’d go tearing around a vacant lot, some future construction site or some such, and you’d catch your tender young dermis on a rusty nail. Tetanus! Adults had warned you! You’d get visions of lockjaw and freak out. The grownups had cautioned you that infection with tetanus would cause severe muscle spasms and that those would lead to “locking” of the jaw so you couldn’t open your mouth or swallow. It could maybe even lead to death by suffocation. Tetanus! Ah, the good old days.

Tetanus is not transmitted from person to person.

I wish I could say the same for this current unnamed affliction.

That part also sucks. I don’t even know what to call this. The scientists and doctors hadn’t come to a consensus by the time the broadcasts had ceased. So, what’s the official classification? What’s the name? I never understood the concept of naming a disease after yourself just because you discovered it. Why would you want your name associated with pain and suffering evermore? What was Parkinson thinking? If I was a doctor and I chanced upon some terrible malady I’d name it after someone awful-Hitler’s Syndrome or Bush’s Complex. At any rate, what would you call this latest-and likely final-pathosis? Zombification sounds kind of stupid. And if it’s brewing, if you’re infected but zombification hasn’t blossomed into full-blown zombiehood, what then? What do you call its period of gestation?

I’m not man enough to go all Bruce Campbell on myself and lop off the offending extremity. Not yet. But why bother? It’s in there, doing its thing, circulating. I guess. I remember hearing about this guy who was bitten on the ankle by some totally poisonous snake-in South America I think it was. Anyway, he knew he had about three minutes before the poison killed him. The guy was a lumberjack or something-maybe he was decimating the rain forest. Maybe the snake was protecting its turf. I can’t remember that kind of detail. But he acted decisively and took his chainsaw to his leg and cut it off at the knee. And he lived. The guy lived. He cut it off before the poison could reach his heart. I couldn’t do that. I can’t. So I’m a-goner.

Why should I be any different?

Still, I feel so stupid.

I bandage the bite, more for the psychological comfort it provides. I just don’t want to keep staring at it. Still, there goes my sex life, not being one for ambidexterity. I step out onto the porch and look down at the asphalt walkway. I’d call it a road, but no cars were permitted here. Sure, the occasional emergency vehicle was allowed-they didn’t call it Fire Island for nothing-but no civilian automobiles. During the summer, just a few short, endless months ago, this road was teeming with the pasty and the tan, the fit and the flabby, all making their circuits to and from the beach, most of the guys toting coolers and cases full of cheap, low-octane suds. I never saw anyone with food. All of these beachgoers, the rare quiet ones and the common boisterous types, seemed to sustain themselves purely on beer and greasy wedges from the local pizzeria.

I’d kill for one of those mediocre slices right now.

The walkway is mostly obscured by slushy sand-just patches of buried blackness showing through here and there. I used to sit on this porch, reading-or at least pretending to read-and scoping the hotties. Right before the current, ultimate, nameless pandemic came and ruined everything, the Girls Gone Wild epidemic had swept the nation. Formerly normal girls, ones with a modicum of propriety, would suddenly whip off their tops and bounce up and down. All it took to loosen them up was massive quantities of alcohol, a bit of flattery, and the materialization of a video camera. How many parents cried themselves to sleep at night because of those DVDs?

Guys with oversized Dean Martin fishbowl snifters of frozen margarita would chant as these local girls made bad would frown, then giggle, then comply and let their boobs out to Neanderthal choruses of “Whoo-whoo-whoo!” Maybe that was a portent of the looming bestial decline of mankind. Nah. But it’s amazing how fast a sexy girl can become an abject object, all desirability drained away in mere moments.

I don’t know.

I thought coming back to Fire Island would be a good idea. Isolated, especially in the off-season. I liked the whole no cars thing. Back in the city, when it was really beginning to get soupy, the maniacs in their cars were more dangerous than the zombies. The roads were choked with panicky motorists attempting to flee, causing all kinds of mayhem along the way. What did they expect? Light traffic? Idiots. Of course all the roads were clogged. And every poor pedestrian schmuck one of these amateur Dale Earnhardts nailed would rise as one of the undead. Brilliant. Broken dolls peeling themselves off the pavement to wreak havoc on the ones who struck them down. Or whoever was convenient.

I used to be a bike courier, right after that movie Quicksilver came out-but not because of that movie. Never let it be said I was influenced to take a job because of a movie. Remember that thing? Kevin Bacon as a hotshot bike messenger, for the like five minutes Hollywood was convinced such a lame-ass job was cool. All those dumb movies about urban iconoclasts. Anyone for Turk 182?

Anyway.

Even after I moved on from that gig I remained an avid cyclist. My legs conditioned for endurance, I avoided the main arteries and biked all the way from Elmhurst to Bayshore, Long Island, which is a pretty long haul. I don’t know how many miles-my odometer fell off somewhere along the way-but a lot. Especially when you consider the meandering back road nature of the trek. None of that “as the crow flies” convenience. En route I could see things worsening citywide, the zombies increasing their numbers at a dizzying pace. Be fruitful and multiply, I thought, ever the heretic. Even taking this shunpike route I avoided many a close call and witnessed many horrific sights. Amazing how many variations on the themes of evisceration and dismemberment there are. I splashed through more than a few puddles, and I’m not talking water. Having learned the hard way how to avoid hitting pedestrians, getting doored in traffic and other hazards of the bike courier’s trade, I managed to eschew ensnarement by the hungry undead.

At least the zombies are slow.

And can’t ride bikes or drive cars.

Yet.

When I got to the marina-actually, that sounds a bit grand. The wharf? The dock? Whatever-where the ferries left for the island, I realized there wasn’t exactly going to be regular service. What was I thinking? Panic doesn’t make for cogent planning, but you’d think on that interminable bike ride I’d have flashed on the notion that maybe ferry service to the island was terminated. Oddly, the ferries were still docked. Empty. No one was around, which was rather eerie. Not a creature was stirring, not even a zombie. Forgive me, but Christmas is coming. Call me sentimental.

Anyway, I boarded one and got as far as the bridge before I realized I had no idea how to pilot such a craft. I don’t even know how to drive a car. And I had the brass to think those anxious drivers idiotic. Here I was, way out in Long Island, not my bailiwick, with no plan and nowhere to go. I was exhausted, too. I walked over to the vending machine to score a refreshing beverage. I’d earned that. The machine was dead, not accepting currency, paper or coin. I kicked the machine, shook it, then basically beat the hell out of it. I needed to vent. As it lay on its side, its front came undone and it spilled its innards in a cacophony of tinny-or would that be aluminumy-clanks. I chugged three cans in a row of Ocean Spray cranberry cocktail and felt better. I then stuffed a bunch in my backpack, and as I was about to check the grounds for more comestibles I spotted some interested parties dotting the periphery.