Warm Bodies: A Novel

by Isaac Marion

  But she doesn’t speak. She sets the manuscript back in the drawer and gently slides it shut. She straightens up, dries her face with her sleeve, and embraces me, resting her ear against my chest.

  “Thump-thump,” she murmurs. “Thump-thump. Thump-thump.”

  My hands hang limp at my sides. “I’m sorry,” I say.

  With her eyes closed, her voice muffled by my shirt, she says, “I forgive you.”

  I raise a hand and touch her straw-gold hair. “Thank you.”

  These three phrases, so simple, so primal, have never sounded so complete. So true to their basic meanings. I feel her cheek move against my chest, her zygomaticus major pulling her lips into a faint smile.

  Without another word, we shut the door on Perry Kelvin’s room and leave his home. We descend the stairs past beleaguered teens, past tossing and turning kids, past deeply dreaming babies, and out into the street. I feel a nudge low in my chest, closer to my heart than my belly, and a soft voice in my head.

  Thank you, Perry says.

  • • •

  I would like to end it here. How nice if I could edit my own life. If I could halt in the middle of a sentence and put it all to rest in a drawer somewhere, consummate my amnesia and forget all the things that have happened, are happening, and are about to happen. Shut my eyes and go to sleep happy.

  But no, “R.” No sleep of the innocent. Not for you. Did you forget? You have blood on your hands. On your lips. On your teeth. Smile for the cameras.

  “JULIE,” I SAY, bracing to confess my final sin. “I need . . . to tell you . . .”

  BANG.

  The stadium’s field halogens flare like suns and midnight becomes daylight. I can see every pore in Julie’s face.

  “What the hell?” she gasps, whipping her head around. A piercing alarm further shatters the night’s stillness, and then we see it: the Jumbotron is aglow. Hanging from the upper reaches of the open roof like a tablet descending from Heaven, the screen plays a blocky animation of a quarterback running from what appears to be a zombie, arms outstretched and clutching. The screen blinks between this and a word that I think might be:

  BREACH

  “R . . . ,” Julie says, horrified, “did you eat someone?”

  I look at her desperately. “No ch . . . no choi . . . no choice,” I stutter, my diction collapsing in my state of panic. “Guard . . . stopped me. Didn’t . . . mean. Didn’t . . . want.”

  She presses her lips together, her eyes boring into me, then gives a single shake of her head as if banishing one thought, committing to another. “Okay. Then we need to get inside. God damn it, R.”

  We run into the house and she slams the door. Nora is at the top of the stairs. “Where have you guys been? What’s going on out there?”

  “It’s a breach,” Julie says. “Zombie in the stadium.”

  “You mean him?”

  The disappointment in her reply makes me wince. “Yes and no.”

  We hurry into Julie’s bedroom and she turns out the lights. We all sit on the floor on the piles of laundry, and for a while nobody speaks. We just sit and listen to the sounds. Guards running and shouting. Gunfire. Our own heavy breathing.

  “Don’t worry,” Julie whispers to Nora, but I know it’s for me. “It won’t spread much. Those shots were probably Security taking him out already.”

  “Are we in the clear, then?” Nora asks. “Will R be okay?”

  Julie looks at me. Her face is grim. “Even if they think the breach started from a natural death, that guard obviously didn’t eat himself. Security will know there’s at least one zombie unaccounted for.”

  Nora follows Julie’s eyes to mine, and I can almost imagine my face flushing. “It was you?” she asks, straining for neutrality.

  “Didn’t . . . mean. Was . . . going . . . kill me.”

  She says nothing. Her face is blank.

  I meet her stare, willing her to feel my crushing remorse. “It was my last,” I say, straining to force language back into my idiot tongue. “No matter what. Swear to the skymouth.”

  A few agonizing moments pass. Then Nora slowly nods, and addresses Julie. “So we need to get him out of here.”

  “They shut everything down for breaches. All the doors will be locked and guarded. They might even shut the roof if they get scared enough.”

  “So what the hell are we supposed to do?”

  Julie shrugs, and the gesture looks so bleak on her, so wrong. “I don’t know,” she says. “Once again, I don’t know.”

  • • •

  Julie and Nora fall asleep. They fight it for hours, trying to come up with a plan to save me, but eventually they succumb. I lie on a pile of pants and stare up at the starry green ceiling. Not so easy, Mr. Lennon. Even if you try.

  It seems trivial now, a thin silver lining on a vast black stormcloud, but I think I’m learning to read. As I look up at the phosphorescent galaxy, letters come together and form words. Stringing them into full sentences is still beyond me, but I savor the sensation of those little symbols clicking together and bursting like soap bubbles of sound. If I ever see my wife again . . . I’ll at least be able to read her nametag.

  The hours ooze by. It’s after midnight but bright as noon outside. The halogens ram their white light against the house, squeezing in through cracks in the window shades. My ears tune to the sounds around me. The girls’ breathing. Their small shifting movements. And then, sometime around two in the morning, a phone rings.

  Julie comes awake, gets up on one elbow. In some distant room of the house, the phone rings again. She throws off her blankets and stands up. Strange to see her from this angle, towering over me instead of cowering under. I’m the one who needs protecting now. One mistake, one brief lapse of my newfound judgment—that’s all it took to unravel everything. What a massive responsibility, being a moral creature.

  The phone keeps ringing. Julie walks out of the bedroom and I follow her through the dark, echoing house. We step into what appears to be an office. There is a large desk covered in papers and blueprints, and on the walls various kinds of telephones are screwed to the drywall, different brands and styles from all different eras.

  “They rerouted the phone system,” Julie explains. “It’s more like an intercom now. We have direct lines to all the important areas.”

  Each phone has a nametag sticker stuck below it, with the location Sharpied onto the blank. Hi, my name is:

  GARDENS

  KITCHENS

  WAREHOUSE

  GARAGE

  ARMORY

  CORRIDOR 2

  GOLDMAN DOME

  LEHMAN ARENA

  AIG FIELD

  And so on.

  The phone that’s ringing, a pea-green rotary-dialer covered in dust, is labeled:

  OUTSIDE

  Julie looks at the phone. She looks at me. “This is weird. That line is from the phones in the abandoned outer districts. Since we got walkie-talkies nobody uses it anymore.”

  The phone clangs its bells, loud and insistent. I can’t believe Nora is still asleep.

  Slowly, Julie picks up the receiver and puts it to her ear. “Hello?” She waits. “What? I can’t under—” Her brow furrows in concentration. Then her eyes widen. “Oh.” They narrow. “You. Yeah this is Julie, what do you—” She waits. “Fine. Yeah, he’s right here.”

  She holds the phone out to me. “It’s for you.”

  I stare at it. “What?”

  “It’s your friend. That fat fuck from the airport.”

  I grab the phone. I put the earpiece to my mouth. Julie shakes her head and flips it around for me. Into the receiver I breathe a stunned “M?”

  His deep rumble crackles in my ear. “Hey . . . loverboy.”

  “What’s . . . Where are you?”

  “Out in . . . city. Didn’t know . . . what would get with . . . phone, but had . . . to try. You’re . . . okay?”

  “Okay but . . . trapped. Stadium . . . locked down.”

&
nbsp; “Shit.”

  “What’s . . . going on? Out there?”

  There is silence for a moment. “R,” he says. “Dead . . . still coming. More. From airport. Other places. Lots . . . of us now.”

  I’m silent. The phone wanders away from my ear. Julie looks at me expectantly.

  “Hello?” M says.

  “Sorry. I’m here.”

  “Well we’re . . . here. What now? What should . . . do?”

  I rest the phone on my shoulder and look at the wall, at nothing. I look at the papers and plans on General Grigio’s desk. His strategies are all gibberish to me. I have no doubt it’s all important—food allocation, construction plans, weapon distribution, combat tactics. He’s trying to keep everyone alive, and that’s good. That’s foundational. But like Julie said, there must be something even deeper than that. The earth under that foundation. Without that firm ground, it’s all going to collapse, over and over, no matter how many bricks he lays. This is what I’m interested in. The earth under the bricks.

  “What’s going on?” Julie asks. “What’s he saying?”

  As I look into her anxious face, I feel the twitch in my guts, the young, eager voice in my head.

  It’s happening, corpse. Whatever you and Julie triggered, it’s moving. A good disease, a virus that causes life! Do you see this, you dumb fucking monster? It’s inside you! You have to get out of these walls and spread it!

  I angle the phone toward Julie so she can listen. She leans in close.

  “M,” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell Julie.”

  “What?”

  “Tell Julie . . . what’s happening.”

  There’s a pause. “Changing,” he says. “Lots of us . . . changing. Like R.”

  Julie looks at me and I can almost sense her neck hairs standing on end. “It’s not just you?” she says, moving away from the phone. “This . . . reviving thing?” Her voice is small and tentative, like a little girl poking her head out of a bomb shelter after years of life in the dark. It almost quivers with tight-leashed hope. “Are you saying the plague is healing?”

  I nod. “We’re . . . fixing things.”

  “But how?”

  “Don’t know. But we have to . . . do more of it. Out there . . . where M is. ‘Outside.’”

  Her excitement cools, hardens. “So we have to leave.”

  I nod.

  “Both of us?”

  “Both,” M says, his voice crackling in the earpiece like an eavesdropping mother. “Julie . . . part of it.”

  She eyes me dubiously. “You want me. Skinny little human girl. Out there in the wild, running with a pack of zombies?”

  I nod.

  “Do you grasp how insane that is?”

  I nod.

  She is silent for a moment, looking at the floor. “Do you really think you can keep me safe?” she asks me. “Out there, with them?”

  My incurable honesty makes me hesitate, and Julie frowns.

  “Yes,” M answers for me, exasperated. “He can. And I’ll . . . help.”

  I nod quickly. “M will help. The others . . . will help. Besides,” I add with a faint smile, “you can . . . keep yourself safe.”

  She shrugs nonchalantly. “I know. I just wanted to see what you’d say.”

  “So you’ll . . . ?”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “You’re . . . sure?”

  Her eyes are distant and hard. “I had to bury my mom’s empty dress. I’ve been waiting for this a long time.”

  I nod. I take a deep breath.

  “The only problem with your plan,” she continues, “is that you seem to be forgetting you ate someone last night, and this place is going to stay clamped shut until they find and kill you.”

  “Should we . . . attack?” M says. “Get you . . . out?”

  I put the phone back to my ear, gripping the receiver hard. “No,” I tell him.

  “Have . . . army. Where’s . . . battle?”

  “Don’t know. Not here. These are . . . people.”

  “Well?”

  I look at Julie. She looks at the ground and rubs her forehead.

  “Just wait,” I tell M.

  “Wait?”

  “A little longer. We’ll . . . figure it out.”

  “Before . . . they kill you?”

  “Hopefully.”

  A long, dubious silence. Then: “Hurry up.”

  • • •

  Julie and I stay up all night. In our rain-wet clothes we sit on the floor in the cold living room and don’t say a word. Eventually my eyes sag shut, and in this strange calm, in what may be my last few hours on Earth, my mind creates a dream for me. Crisp and clear, alive with color, unfolding like a time-lapse rose in the sparkling darkness.

  In this dream, my dream, I am floating down a river on my housejet’s severed tail fin. I am lying on my back under the blue midnight, watching the stars drift by above me. The river is uncharted because the maps have burned and the satellites have crashed, and I have no idea where it leads. The air is still. The night is warm. I’ve brought only two provisions: a box of pad thai and Perry’s book. Thick. Ancient. Bound in leather. I open it to the middle. An unfinished sentence in some language I’ve never seen, and beyond it, nothing. An epic tome of empty pages, blank white and waiting. I shut the book and lay my head down on the cool steel. The pad thai tickles my nose, sweet and spicy and strong. I feel the river widening, gaining force.

  I hear the waterfall.

  • • •

  “R.”

  My eyes open and I sit up. Julie is cross-legged next to me, watching me with grim amusement.

  “Having some nice dreams?”

  “Not . . . sure,” I mumble, rubbing my eyes.

  “Did you happen to dream up any solutions to our little problem?”

  I shake my head.

  “Yeah, me either.” She glances at the wall clock and bunches her lips ruefully. “I’m supposed to be at the community center in a few hours to do story time. David and Marie are going to cry when I don’t show up.”

  David and Marie. I repeat the names in my head, savoring their contours. I would let that dog eat my whole leg for the chance to see those kids again. To hear a few more clumsy syllables tumble from their mouths before I die. “What are . . . you reading them?”

  She looks out the window at the city, its every crack and flaw brought into sharp relief by the blinding white light. “I’ve been trying to get them into the Redwall books. I figured all those songs and feasts and courageous warrior mice would be a nice escape from the nightmare they’re growing up in. Marie keeps asking for books about zombies and I keep telling her I can’t read nonfiction for story time, but . . .” She notices the look on my face and trails off. “Are you okay?”

  I nod.

  “Are you thinking about your kids at the airport?”

  I hesitate, then nod.

  She reaches out and touches my knee, looking into my stinging eyes. “R? I know things look bleak right now, but listen. You can’t quit. As long as you’re still breathe—sorry, as long as you’re still moving, it’s not over. Okay?”

  I nod.

  “Okay? Fucking say it, R.”

  “Okay.”

  She smiles.

  “TWO. EIGHT. TWENTY-FOUR.”

  We jolt away from each other as a speaker in the ceiling blares out a series of numbers followed by a shrill alert tone.

  “This is Colonel Rosso with a community-wide notice,” the speaker says. “The Security breach has been contained. The infected officer has been neutralized, with no further casualties reported.”

  I release a deep breath.

  “However . . .”

  “Shit,” Julie whispers.

  “. . . the original source of the breach remains at large within our walls. Security patrols will now begin a door-to-door search of every building in the stadium. Since we don’t know where this thing might be hiding, everyone should com
e out of their houses and congregate in a public area. Do not confine yourself in any small spaces.” Rosso pauses to cough. “Sorry about this, folks. We’ll get it taken care of, just . . . sit tight.”

  There’s a click, and the PA goes quiet.

  Julie jumps to her feet and storms into the bedroom. She pulls open the blinds, letting the floodlights burst through the window. “Rise and shine, Miss Greene, we’re out of time. Do you remember any old exits in the wall tunnels? Wasn’t there a fire escape somewhere by the skybox? R, can you climb a ladder?”

  “Wait, what?” Nora croaks, trying to shield her eyes. “What’s happening?”

  “According to R’s friend, maybe the end of this shitty undead world, if we don’t get killed first.”

  Nora finally comes awake. “Sorry, what?”

  “I’ll tell you later. They just announced a sweep. We have maybe ten minutes. We need to find . . .” Her voice fades and I watch her mouth move. The shapes her lips make for each word, the flick of tongue against glistening teeth. She is holding on to hope but my grip is slipping. She twists at her hair as she talks, her golden tresses stiff and matted and in need of a wash.

  The spicy smell of her shampoo, flowers and herbs and cinnamon dancing with her natural oils. She would never say what brand she used. She liked to keep her scent a mystery.

  “R!”

  Julie and Nora are staring at me, waiting. I open my mouth to speak, but I have no words. And then the front door of the house bangs open so hard it resonates through the metal walls all the way to where we’re standing. Heavy, booted footfalls pound the stairs.

  “Oh Jesus,” Julie says in a panicked breath. She herds us out of the room and into the hallway bathroom. “Get his makeup back on,” she hisses to Nora, and slams the door shut.

  As Nora fumbles her compact out of her purse and tries to rerouge my rain-stained face, I hear two voices out in the hall.