Warm Bodies: A Novel

by Isaac Marion

  “When . . . figure out . . . ,” M finally says, in a tone more earnest than I’ve ever heard from him, “tell me. Tell . . . us.”

  I wait for him to crack wise, turn it into a joke, but he doesn’t. Rare for him or anyone else in this mordant era: he is actually sincere.

  “I will,” I say. I slap him on the shoulder and stand up. As I walk away, he gives me that same strange look I’m finding on the faces of all the Dead. That mixture of confusion, fear, and faint anticipation.

  THE SCENE as Julie and I make our way out of the airport resembles either a wedding procession or a buffet line. The Dead are lined up in the halls to watch us pass. Every last one of them is here. They look restless, agitated, and would clearly love to devour Julie, but they don’t move or make a sound. Over Julie’s heated protests I asked M to escort us out. He follows a few paces behind, huge and vigilant, scanning the crowd like a Secret Service agent.

  The unnatural silence of a room full of people who don’t breathe is surreal. I swear I can hear Julie’s heart pounding. She is trying to look cool and calm, but her darting eyes betray her.

  “Are you sure about this?” she whispers.

  “Yes.”

  “There’s like . . . hundreds of them.”

  “Keep you safe.”

  “Right, right, I’m completely safe, how could I forget.” Her voice grows very small. “Seriously, R . . . I mean I’ve seen you kick a few asses, but you know if they decide to ring the dinner bell right now I’m going to be sushi.”

  “They . . . won’t,” I tell her with a surprising degree of confidence. “We’re . . . new thing. Haven’t . . . seen before. Look at them.”

  She looks closer at the surrounding faces, and I hope she can see what I’ve been seeing. The strange array of their reactions to us, to the anomaly we represent. I know they will let us through, but Julie appears unconvinced. A tight wheeze creeps into her breathing. She fumbles in her messenger bag and pulls out an inhaler, takes a hit from it and holds it in, eyes still darting.

  “You’ll . . . be okay,” M says in his low rumble.

  She expels the breath and whips her head around to glare at him. “Who the fuck asked you, you fucking blood sausage? I should have hedge-trimmed you in half yesterday.”

  M chuckles and raises his eyebrows at me. “Got . . . a live one . . . ‘R.’ ”

  We continue unmolested all the way to the Departures gate. As we step out into the daylight, I feel a nervous buzz in my stomach. At first I think it’s just the everpresent terror of the open sky, now looming over us in bruised shades of gray and purple, boiling with high-altitude thunderheads. But it’s not the sky. It’s the sound. That low, warbling tone, like baritone madmen humming nursery rhymes. I don’t know if I’ve just gotten more attuned to it or if it’s actually louder, but I hear it even before the Boneys make their appearance.

  “Shit, oh shit,” Julie whispers to herself.

  They march around both corners of the loading zone and form a line in front of us. There are more of them than I’ve ever seen in one place. I had no idea there even were this many, at least not in our airport.

  “Problem,” M says. “They look . . . pissed.”

  He’s right. There is something different in their demeanor. Their body language seems stiffer, if that’s possible. Yesterday they were a jury stepping in to review our case. Today they are judges, announcing the sentence. Or perhaps executioners, executing it.

  “Leaving!” I shout at them. “Taking her back! So they won’t . . . come here!”

  The skeletons don’t move or respond. Their bones harmonize in some sour alien key.

  “What . . . do you want?” I demand.

  The entire front row raises its arms in unison and points at Julie. It strikes me how wrong this is, how fundamentally different these creatures are from the rest of us. The Dead are adrift on a foggy sea of ennui. They don’t do things in unison.

  “Taking her back!” I shout louder, faltering in my attempt at reasonable discourse. “If . . . kill her . . . they’ll come here. Kill . . . us!”

  There is no hesitation, no time for them to consider anything I’ve said; their response is predetermined and immediate. In unison, like demon monks chanting Hell’s vespers, they emit that noise from their chest cavities, that proud crow of unyielding conviction, and although it’s wordless, I understand exactly what it’s saying:

  No need to speak.

  No need to listen.

  Everything is already known.

  She will not leave.

  We will kill her.

  That is how things are done.

  Always has been.

  Always will be.

  I look at Julie. She is trembling. I grip her hand and look at M. He nods.

  With the pulse-warmth of Julie’s hand flooding through my icy fingers, I run.

  We bolt left, trying to dodge around the edge of the Boneys’ platoon. As they clatter forward to block my path, M surges out in front of me and rams his bulk into the nearest row, knocking them into a pile of hooked limbs and interlocked rib cages. A fierce blast of their invisible horn stabs the air.

  “What are you doing?” Julie gasps as I drag her behind me. I am actually running faster than her.

  “Keep you sa—”

  “Don’t you even think about saying ‘Keep you safe’!” she shrieks. “This is about as far from safe as I’ve ever—”

  She screams as a skinless hand pinches down on her shoulder and digs in. The creature’s jaw opens to sink its filed fangs into her neck, but I grab it by the spine and wrench it off of her. I fling it to the concrete as hard as I can, but there is no impact and no shattering of bones. The thing almost seems to float in defiance of gravity, its rib cage barely touching the ground before it springs upright again, lurching toward my face like some hideous, unkillable insect.

  “M!” I croak as it grapples for my throat. “Help!”

  M is busy trying to peel skeletons off his arms, legs, and back, but he seems to be standing his ground thanks to his superior size and mass. As I struggle to keep the skeleton’s fingers out of my eyes, M lumbers toward me, pulls the thing off me, and flings it into three others about to jump on him from behind.

  “Go!” he yells, and shoves me forward, then turns to face our pursuers. I grab Julie’s hand and dash toward our target. Finally, she sees it. The Mercedes. “Oh!” she pants. “Okay!”

  We jump in the car and I bring the engine to life. “Oh Mercey . . . ,” Julie says, stroking the dashboard like it’s a beloved pet. “So happy to see you right now.” I put the car in gear and release the clutch, gunning us forward. Somehow, it seems easy now.

  M has given up trying to fight and is now just running for his life with a mob of skeletons trailing behind him. Hundreds of zombies stand outside the Departures entry area, watching everything in silence. What are they thinking? Are they thinking? Is there any chance they’re forming a reaction to this event unfolding in front of them? This sudden explosion of anarchy in the state-approved program of their lives?

  M cuts across the street, directly across our exit route, and I floor the accelerator. M crosses in front of us, then the Boneys cross in front of us, then four thousand pounds of German engineering smash into their brittle, ossified bodies. They shatter. Bits of anatomy fly everywhere. Two thigh bones, three hands, and half a cranium land inside the car, where they vibrate and twitch on the seats, releasing dry gasps and insectile buzzes. Julie hurls them out of the car and frantically wipes her hands on her sweatshirt, shuddering in revulsion and whimpering, “Oh my God oh my God.”

  But we are safe. Julie is safe. We roar past the Arrivals gate, onto the freeway, and out into the wider world while the stormclouds churn overhead. I look at Julie. She looks at me. We both smile as the first raindrops begin to fall.

  TEN MINUTES LATER, the storm has launched into its big opening movement, and we are getting soaked. The convertible was a poor choice for a day like this. Neither of
us can figure out how to put the top up, so we drive in silence with heavy sheets of rain beating down on our heads. We don’t complain, though. We try to stay positive.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” Julie asks after about twenty minutes. Her hair is matted flat on her face.

  “Yes,” I say, looking down the road at the dark gray horizon.

  “Are you sure? ’Cause I have no idea.”

  “Very . . . sure.”

  I prefer not to explain why I know the route between the airport and the city so well. Our hunting route. Yes, she knows what I am and what I do, but do I have to remind her? Can we just have a nice drive and forget certain things for a while? In the sunny fields of my imagination we are not a teenager and a walking corpse driving in a rainstorm. We are Frank and Ava cruising treelined country lanes while a scratchy vinyl orchestra swoons our soundtrack.

  “Maybe we should stop and ask directions.”

  I look at her. I look around at the crumbling districts surrounding us, nearly black in the evening gloom.

  “Kidding,” she says, her eyes peeking out between plastered wet clumps of hair. She leans back in the seat and folds her arms behind her head. “Let me know when you need a break. You kinda drive like an old lady.”

  • • •

  As the rain pools into standing water at our feet, I notice Julie shivering a little. It’s a warm spring night, but she’s saturated, and the cab of the old convertible is a cyclone of freeway wind. I take the next exit and we ease down into a silent graveyard of suburban grid homes. Julie looks at me with questioning eyes. I can hear her teeth chattering.

  I drive slowly past the houses, looking for a good place to stop for the night. Eventually I pull into a weedy cul-de-sac and park next to a rusted Plymouth Voyager. I take Julie’s hand and pull her toward the nearest house. The door is locked, but the dryrotted wood gives way with a light kick. We step into the relative warmth of some long-dead family’s cozy little nest. There are old Coleman lanterns placed throughout the house, and once Julie lights them they provide a flickering campsite glow that feels oddly comforting. She ambles around the kitchen and living room, looking at toys, dishes, stacks of old magazines. She picks up a stuffed koala bear and looks it in the eyes. “Home sweet home,” she mumbles.

  She reaches into her messenger bag, pulls out a Polaroid camera, points it at me and snaps a shot. The flash is shocking in this dark place. She grins at my startled expression and holds up the camera. “Look familiar? I stole it from the skeletons’ meeting room yesterday morning.” She hands me the developing photo. “It’s important to capture things, you know? Especially now, since the world is on its way out.” She puts the viewfinder to her eye and turns in a slow circle, taking in the whole room. “Everything you see, you might be seeing for the last time.”

  I wave the picture in my hand. A ghostly image begins to take shape. It’s me, R, the corpse that thinks it’s alive, staring back at me with those wide, pewter-gray eyes. Julie hands the camera to me.

  “You should always be taking pictures, if not with a camera then with your mind. Memories you capture on purpose are always more vivid than the ones you pick up by accident.” She strikes a pose and grins. “Cheese!”

  I take her picture. When it rolls out of the camera she reaches for it, but I pull it away and hide it behind my back. I hand her mine. She rolls her eyes, takes the photo and studies it, tilting her head. “Not bad. I think the rain cleaned you up a little.”

  She lowers the photo and squints at me for a moment. “Why are your eyes like that?”

  I look at her warily. “Like . . . what?”

  “That weird gray. It’s nothing like how corpse eyes look. Not clouded over or anything. Why are they like that?”

  I give this some thought. “Don’t know. Happens at . . . conversion.”

  She’s looking at me so hard I start to squirm. “It’s creepy,” she says. “Looks . . . supernatural, almost. Do they ever change color? Like when you kill people or something?”

  I try not to sigh. “I think . . . you’re thinking . . . of vampires.”

  “Oh, right, right.” She chuckles and gives a rueful shake of her head. “At least those aren’t real yet. Too many monsters to keep track of these days.”

  Before I can take offense, she looks up at me and smiles. “Anyway . . . I like them. Your eyes. They’re actually kinda pretty. Creepy . . . but pretty.”

  It’s probably the best compliment I’ve received in my entire Dead life. Ignoring my idiot stare, Julie wanders off into the house, humming to herself.

  • • •

  The storm is raging outside, with occasional thunderclaps. I’m grateful that our house happens to have all its windows intact. Most of the others’ were smashed long ago by looters or feeders. I glimpse a few debrained corpses on our neighbors’ green lawns, but I’d like to imagine our hosts got out alive. Made it to one of the stadiums, maybe even some walled-off paradise in the mountains, angelic choirs singing behind pearl-studded titanium gates . . .

  I sit in the living room listening to the rain fall while Julie putters around the house. After a while she comes back with an armful of dry clothes and dumps them on the love seat. She holds up a pair of jeans about ten sizes too big. “What do you think?” she says, wrapping the waist around her entire body. “Do these make me look fat?” She drops them and digs around in the pile, pulls out a mass of cloth that appears to be a dress. “I can use this for a tent if we get lost in the woods tomorrow. God, these folks must have made a fancy feast for some lucky zombie.”

  I shake my head, making a gag face.

  “What, you don’t eat fat people?”

  “Fat . . . not alive. Waste product. Need . . . meat.”

  She laughs. “Oh, so you’re an audiophile and a food snob! Jesus.” She tosses the clothes aside and lets out a deep breath. “Well, all right. I’m exhausted. The bed in there isn’t too rotten. I’m going to sleep.”

  I lie back on the cramped love seat, settling in for a long night alone with my thoughts. But Julie doesn’t leave. Standing there in the bedroom doorway, she looks at me for a long minute. I’ve seen this look before, and I brace myself for whatever’s coming.

  “R . . . ,” she says. “Do you . . . have to eat people?”

  I sigh inside, so exhausted by these ugly questions, but when did a monster ever deserve its privacy?

  “Yes.”

  “Or you’ll die?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t eat me.”

  I hesitate.

  “You rescued me. Like three times.”

  I nod slowly.

  “And you haven’t eaten anyone since then, right?”

  I frown in concentration, thinking back. She’s right. Not counting the few bites of leftover brains here and there, I’ve been gastronomically celibate since the day I met her.

  A peculiar little half smile twitches on her face. “You’re kind of . . . changing, aren’t you?”

  As usual, I am speechless.

  “Well, good night,” she says, and shuts the bedroom door.

  I lie there on the couch, gazing up at the water-stained cottage-cheese ceiling.

  “What’s going on with you?” M asks me over a cup of moldy coffee in the airport Starbucks. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. Just changing.”

  “How can you change? If we all start from the same blank slate, what makes you diverge?”

  “Maybe we’re not blank. Maybe the debris of our old lives still shapes us.”

  “But we don’t remember those lives. We can’t read our diaries.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We are where we are, however we got here. What matters is where we go next.”

  “But can we choose that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’re Dead. Can we really choose anything?”

  “Maybe. If we want to bad enough.”

  The rain drumming on the roof. The creak of wear
y timbers. The prickle of the old couch cushions through the holes in my shirt. I’m busy searching my post-death memory for the last time I went this long without food when I notice Julie standing in the doorway again. Her arms are folded on her chest and her hip is pressed against the door frame. Her foot taps an anxious rhythm on the floor.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Well . . . ,” she says. “I was just thinking. The bed’s a king-size. So I guess, if you wanted to . . . I wouldn’t care if you joined me in there.” I raise my eyebrows a little. Her face reddens. “Look, all I’m saying—all I’m saying—is I don’t mind giving you a side of the bed. These rooms are kinda spooky, you know? I don’t want the ghost of Mrs. Sprat crushing me in my sleep. And considering I haven’t showered in over a week, you really don’t smell much worse than I do; maybe we’ll cancel each other out.” She shrugs one shoulder, whatever, and disappears into the bedroom.

  I wait a few minutes. Then, with great uncertainty, I get up and follow her in. She is already in the bed, curled into the fetal position with the blankets pulled tight around her. I slowly ease myself onto the far opposite edge. The blankets are all on her side, but I don’t need their warmth. I am perpetually room-temperature.

  Despite the pile of luxurious down comforters wrapped around her, Julie is still shivering. “These clothes are . . . ,” she mutters, and sits up in bed. “Fuck.” She glances over at me. “I’m going to lay my clothes out to dry. Just . . . relax, okay?” With her back to me, she wriggles out of her wet jeans and peels her shirt over her head. The skin of her back is blue-white from the cold. Almost the same hue as mine. In her polka-dot bra and plaid panties, she gets out of bed and drapes her clothes over the dresser, then quickly crawls back under the covers and curls up. “Good night,” she says.

  I lay my head on my folded arms, staring up at the ceiling. We are both on the very edges of the mattress, about four feet of space between us. I get the feeling that it’s not just my ghoulish nature that makes her so wary. Living or Dead, virile or impotent, I still appear to be a man, and maybe she thinks I’ll act the same as any other man would, lying so close to a beautiful woman. Maybe she thinks I’ll try to take things from her. That I’ll slither over and try to consume her. But then why am I even in this bed? Is it a test? For me, or for her? What strange hopes are compelling her to take this risk?