Love, Lust, and Zombies

by Mitzi Szereto

  I swept a cloak around me and lifted the hood to cover my face. I opened the door and Reed lurched inside and into my arms. I caught him and managed to lower him roughly to the floor. Cold air whipped around us but I felt nothing. I pushed the door closed and lit a fire in the hearth, hoping that no one else was outside to see the smoke.

  Reed was coated in frozen mud, as he had been on his first arrival. His face was covered in bruises and cuts, red and raw with exposure to cold and wind. His hands were chapped and blackened and his eyelids were rimmed with ice.

  The blue faded from his lips as he warmed before the fire. I watched him enviously as he came back to life. He stirred and mumbled something. I leaned closer.

  “No way out,” he said.

  “Reed…”

  His eyes opened and his bleeding lips formed a smile when he saw me. “Sally?”

  I nodded under my cloak but he couldn’t see the motion. I stroked his hand reassuringly.

  “I’m here,” I said.

  “The roads are gone. They don’t lead anywhere except back to Waring. There’s no way out.”

  “You’re trapped,” I said. “We all are.” The only difference was that we were unable to leave even during the other seasons.

  “I’m so hungry.”

  “We have no food.” Another twinge in my belly. The life that grew inside me was hungry too. Should I tell Reed that he was a father? Would he be pleased?

  I hunted behind the bar until I found a small, dusty jar of pickles that looked like it dated back a hundred years. I handed it to Reed doubtfully. He lacked the strength to open the lid himself so I did it for him. I fed him and when he had finished the last pickle he drank the brine greedily, the juice matting his wild beard.

  Seeing how thirsty he was, I filled a bucket with snow from outside and hung it over the fire.

  “Sally. Why do you wear that cloak? I’ve missed your pretty face.”

  “I’m cold.”

  “Then come closer to the fire.”

  I didn’t move. “Oh, why didn’t you leave when I told you to? You might have made it then.”

  “Can’t you show me the way?”

  “The way won’t open for you until March at the earliest.” It was then that I finally felt despair. I would lose him, and I would lose his baby. When the others found out, perhaps I would lose my life for jeopardizing our secret shame. That last thought was consoling—it would be an end to this, a release from my strange half-life.

  “What’s happened here?” Reed said. “It’s become a ghost town. Where did everyone go?”

  He was going to die anyway, so I decided to tell him.

  “Every winter we… Death touches all of us, for a time. When the spring comes, life returns to our bodies and we can go on like normal people. But for now, we’re walking dead.”

  Reed was quiet for a long time. “But the stories…”

  “It isn’t eternal life. It’s eternal death.” We did live longer because of our strange condition, but it was only an extended lifetime of small half-deaths.

  His eyes showed fear. I felt more naked than I ever had with him.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “You were right about one thing: there is magic here. But not the kind you can bottle and sell, if you could find someone who wanted it. You never should have come here.”

  “Come closer, Sally.”

  I reluctantly sat next to him in front of the fire. “Don’t look at me,” I said. “I can’t bear it.”

  “I have to see.” His hands moved toward the hood of my cloak and I flinched. He grabbed the cloth firmly and slowly lowered it, his eyes focused on mine.

  To his credit, he didn’t scream. I was glad of that, afraid he would bring the whole of Waring to discover us. He drew back, his eyes wide and his mouth parted in shock.

  When he recovered he touched one of my waxy cheeks with one hand and gazed into my clouded eyes. “Strange and unusual,” he said.

  His fingers caressed my cadaverous lips and I closed my eyes. Then he surprised me. He kissed me. His lips were feverish against mine.

  “No,” I said. I pushed him away. “I don’t want that. It’s disgusting.” I pressed two fingers against my mouth, but the warmth faded too quickly.

  “Is it?” he asked.

  “If it isn’t then it’s just pity, and I don’t want that from you either.”

  “What about what I want?” he asked.

  I opened my cloak so he could see how my dress hung on my shrunken frame, and how my decaying flesh was mottled and discolored. The loose clothing hid my engorged stomach.

  He jerked back. He lowered his eyes and I was relieved that he couldn’t see my dismay. “Sally, I—”

  “Shhh.” There was nothing he could say to make this all right.

  He lay by the fire, my cloak draped over him for extra warmth though he still shivered beneath it, coughing. I sat watching him. I thought he might have contracted pneumonia from wandering in the cold forest for two weeks, already weak and injured.

  “What will happen to me?” he said finally, when the fire was beginning to die. I could go out for more firewood, but there didn’t seem much point. I would do it for him though, as long as it could keep him alive.

  “You’ll starve to death,” I said simply. There was no way to make the outlook any less grim. “And then I’ll bury you.”

  “There must be food somewhere.”

  “It’s all locked away, Reed, and I don’t know where.” I thought about what would happen if I went to the elders and begged them for the keys. It was better that they didn’t know about Reed. “Even if I could get to it, I wouldn’t. I’m sorry. We need that food in the spring. When we waken, we’re ravenous.”

  “Are there no wild animals to hunt? Maybe with your help, with some weapons—” He coughed violently.

  “Reed. You’re the only living thing in Waring. You’re the only…”

  I trailed a cold finger along his jaw. The fire inside me blazed in response. It was hungry. I was hungry.

  “What is it, love?” he asked.

  I looked at Reed sadly. “Shhh…” I stilled him with a kiss, my hard lips rasping against his. I leaned into him and pushed him onto his back with me on top of him. He hissed with pain. I cast aside my cloak and I pulled up his shirt, tore it open. Buttons snapped off and scattered on the wooden floor like bones tossed from a gambler’s cup.

  His eyes widened. “Sally…”

  I ran my hands all over his bare chest. I pressed a palm against his breastbone and held it there for one, two, three beats of his heart. I imagined my own still heart throbbing in time with his, hot blood pumping through my body.

  When I touched the broken ribs on his left side, he cried out. “Gently,” he moaned. “Oh, Sally. Dear pretty girl.”

  “Gently,” I replied. I leaned over and lapped at his neck with a rough tongue, my mouth watering now at the taste of him. The little fire in me flared in concert with Reed’s quickening pulse. Despite his initial revulsion, even halfway to death, his body was overcome by passion. It still had desires, as did mine.

  I straddled his legs.

  “I finally realized,” I murmured. “This is why they call you Reed, isn’t it?” I cupped the stiffening bulge at his crotch that strained the fabric of his breeches. I remembered him as a man of tall proportions in every respect. He arched his back and grinded his pelvis urgently against me.

  He fumbled to untie the drawstring of his breeches with clumsy, frostbitten fingers. I pulled my dagger from my slack bodice. I stroked the flat edge of the blade up and down the taut front of his breeches. He shuddered and tensed between my legs.

  Reed lifted his head to stare at me intensely. A growl lurked in the back of his throat.

  As he watched, I sawed through the knotted drawstring of his breeches with the tip of the dagger then eased his pants off him. He shivered, as much from my touch as the chill air against his exposed skin. I rested the blade beside
him and licked my lips.

  “Don’t torture me, Sally,” he pleaded. “I need you.”

  “I need you, too,” I said.

  I dipped a corner of my cloak in the hot water over the fire. I wrung out the dripping fabric, heedless of scalding my skin. The nerves in my hands were already dead, depriving me of any sensation of pleasure or pain.

  I swabbed Reed’s neck with the damp cloth then rubbed it down the center of his chest. He closed his eyes and moaned as I tenderly washed away the caked-in sweat, dirt, and dried blood from every part of him. I took special care to clean behind his ears.

  He opened his eyes as I retrieved my dagger. He smiled. “Let’s skip the shave this time. I remember your light touch with a knife.”

  He grabbed me with firm hands at the waist and lifted me up, easing me forward, first gently, then more roughly as I resisted. He was stronger than he’d seemed only moments ago. His fingers dug into my thighs. His chest rose and fell as though he was gasping for breath, and his heart sounded drumbeats in my head.

  I leaned over him on spread knees. The point of my dagger hovered only inches away from his throat.

  Would this work? It seemed possible, if I was quick. If I didn’t falter.

  “Please, Sally.” He voice was thick and ragged with lust.

  The silver blade flashed in the glowing embers from the fire. Before I could veer from my chosen course, I plunged it hilt-deep into his heart, putting all of my weight into it while his body convulsed beneath me. Air escaped from his mouth, a soft sigh of surprise.

  I leaned close and whispered in his ear, wracked with dry tears. “I’m sorry, Reed. But you’re the only food here.”

  His voice gurgled. “You…monster.”

  I shook my head and straightened, still sitting astride him. His blood soaked the front of my dress.

  “It’s for our baby.” I lifted his hand to my belly and pressed it against the warm bump there.

  I thought I saw understanding flicker across his face. Or maybe I just wanted to see it. His pulse faded. His hand fell lifeless from mine, and his eyes stared vacantly up at me, accusingly. My throat tightened as I looked down on him.

  There was no time to waste if I wanted a chance at saving our baby, of sustaining it until spring came. I needed to drag Reed to the abattoir before his flesh cooled. I had helped the butcher bleed a pig before, and I felt confident I could do the same with his body. I would need to store as much of the blood as possible, then cut up the flesh and cure it. Reed was a big man—he might just last us the whole winter if I rationed carefully.

  I caressed Reed’s cheek and pressed his eyelids shut. It was a more merciful way to die than starvation, and this way his death would have some purpose. I kissed his forehead and tugged the dagger from his body.

  I licked the warm blood from the blade. The baby liked it—it yearned for more.

  I clasped my hands over my stomach. “Soon, little monster,” I said, wondering what was growing inside of me. I wiped the dagger off on my dress then tucked it away.

  I opened the door of the tavern and faced the long night. A few flakes of snow drifted inside and alighted on Reed’s still face. When they melted, they looked like tears.

  MY ZOMBIE, MY LOVER

  Mitzi Szereto

  There’s that damned sound again. I’ve been hearing it a lot lately now that the weather’s getting cold. At first I figured it was an injured animal. In these woods we get all sorts—deer, bears, wild turkeys, not to mention every kind of bird and snake and creepy crawly you wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Bigfoot lived in these mountains. The Appalachians are pretty ancient. There might be species here no one’s even discovered yet. Some of the locals definitely look as if the gene pool’s been muddied.

  I moved up here last month for some peace and quiet. You see, big city life hasn’t exactly been helping my blood pressure. I live in a log cabin on top of a mountain. My nearest neighbor lives more than a mile down the road and he never comes up this way. And that’s just how I like it. I’m not a big fan of the human race. I tend to keep to myself. Some might call it “solitary.” I call it “smart.” The less dealings you have with people the less trouble you’re going to get.

  Anyway, back to this noise business. At first I thought it was that pesky woodpecker that’s been hanging around. I swear the bastard wants to peck through the logs of this cabin so he can settle in by the fire with a hot toddy. I should probably take a potshot at him with my rifle to scare him off, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. He’s annoying, but this is his hood, after all. Although I do keep a loaded shotgun by my bed, I’ve never had cause to use it. I didn’t buy it for hunting or killing animals (or woodpeckers). I think hunters are the scum of the earth and should be hunted down (preferably by the animals they enjoy killing), shot in strategically painful locations (I can name some good ones), then left to die a slow and painful death. You can probably tell I’m not a Republican, despite my owning a gun.

  I bought the thing on the off chance that some burglars or serial killers from the big city might decide to pay a visit to the countryside and find their way up to my cabin. Not that I’m easy to find, but burglars and serial killers have nothing better to do but to locate victims. It’s their job, if you think about it.

  The noise always comes at dusk. It starts out as sort of a low keening, escalating here and there into a sharp wail, which stops abruptly. Then it all goes quiet again. It’s weird as hell. I’ve gone out onto the deck several times to try to see what’s causing it. My deck is pretty high up, so if it were some kind of animal—and possibly a rabid one—it can’t get to me. Yet I never see anything other than a squirrel scrabbling about. Whatever this thing is, at least it isn’t one of the local inbreeds creating more inbreeds beneath a romantic mountain sunset. I’ve had a couple of folks in town tell me to watch out for pink-eyed boys carrying banjos. It’s advice I take very seriously.

  Eventually I give up trying to uncover the culprit. Whatever’s making that weird sound isn’t bothering me personally.…

  Until the other week, that is. I’d just come back with my food shopping when no sooner do I get in the door than I feel something isn’t kosher. It’s not a burglary—at least not an obvious one, since everything of value is right where I’d left it: laptop, printer, TV, shotgun…. I couldn’t quite figure it out until I opened the fridge to put away my perishables. I’d left half a roast chicken on the bottom shelf, which was supposed to be my dinner that evening. Well, the plate’s still sitting there on the bottom shelf, and so is the cling film I’d covered the chicken with. But there’s no chicken.

  My first thought was that maybe I’d begun to sleepwalk and gone into the kitchen in the middle of the night and eaten the bird. That morning I’d been in a rush and only opened up the fridge to get some milk for my cereal, so I could’ve overlooked the plate of chicken—or make that the plate of not chicken. I don’t usually sleepwalk, but there’s always a first time for everything, right?

  Anyway, I put it out of my mind.

  Until it happens again.

  When you live in the woods and food goes missing, it’s usually a bear that’s responsible. They’re known to get into bird feeders and trash bins and even cars to scavenge for a meal; it’s not entirely unheard of for them to get into a house, if they smell an opportunity. However, unlike the mess from foraging one might expect from a lumbering and hungry bear, this latest incident has a more premeditated consciousness behind it, as if it knows exactly where to look, but doesn’t want to make a mess while doing the looking.

  It would appear that I have a trespasser in my midst—and this trespasser knows how to pick a lock. It has to be someone who comes up here a lot, because this only happens when I’m not home and my car isn’t parked out front. The thought of someone lying in wait for me to drive off is pretty creepy. Considering that I’m almost always at home, my food thief has to be nearby, possibly even living rough in th
e woods. My first thought is that it’s some smelly old pothead hippy that got lost hitchhiking home from Woodstock or maybe even an Appalachian Unabomber waiting for a chance to wreak havoc on an already paranoid country. Neither prospect appeals.

  I consider reporting it to the local sheriff next time I’m in town, but the idea of filing a police report about the missing half of a roast chicken and some missing slices of ham, cheese and bread to a good old boy Southern cop has about as much appeal as the anticipated identity of my uninvited lunch guest. So I decide to wait it out and catch the culprit in the act, though with my car parked outside my trespasser isn’t likely to show up. I think of parking it down the road at my neighbor’s, but the idea of engaging with him in any substantive way doesn’t appeal to me either. Then fate intervenes.

  I should probably mention that it’s serious hell on a car up in these parts what with all the steep and unpaved roads, which likely explains why everyone seems to drive a pickup. So there I am on my way to the home improvement store to buy a new lock for my front door when I hear a horrendous rattle coming from beneath my car. After I finally manage to locate a service station with what passes as a mechanic on duty, the news I receive isn’t good. Nor is the fact that I’ll be sans voiture for a couple of days while they wait for the necessary part to arrive to do the repair. They don’t have what are called “fern car” dealerships around here; it’s Ford and Chevy and that’s all you’re getting, buddy—you wave them American flags high now, hear? The fact that I drive a socialist European car will likely add dearly to the cost of my repair, if the dirty look I get off Bubba the service station owner is any indication. After finally figuring out how to fit the key into my car’s ignition, he gets one of the guys to give me a lift home, with the promise to come collect me when the car’s ready. I can only hope he’ll keep to his word, since there’s no such thing as a taxi around here.

  By the time I get in the door, I feel so grimy from sitting around the garage’s grimy little waiting room that all I want is to take a nice hot bath. There’s a chill in the air with an overnight freeze being forecast, so I figure I’ll get a head start on the warming-up. As far as I can tell, my food thief hadn’t taken advantage of my absence to come inside to make a sandwich; therefore when I sink down into the steaming hot bathwater it doesn’t even occur to me that my car being gone from out front would make it look as if I’m not at home. It’s only after I dunk my head under the water that I hear the sound of the front door opening.