Love in an Undead Age

by A. M. Geever

  “Settle down, Delilah. It’s okay now,” she said. She patted the dog’s head and rubbed her batwing ears through the back window. Delilah ceased barking but persisted in growling, only partially appeased that the zombie no longer moved toward them.

  Maybe the power around a maintenance entrance gate shorted out, Miranda speculated, a frown twisting her mouth downward. Electrified fences were the weakest link in the Expressway’s security system, but the second set of gates behind them were manned and overengineered. It had never been a problem.

  Until now maybe… But this shambler wasn’t coordinated enough to be a good climber, she thought, lowering the binoculars.

  Most zombies couldn’t climb. They could stumble over low obstacles, but climbing stairs, fences, or ladders required coordination beyond a typical zombie’s abilities. Even if this one were coordinated enough to climb the Expressway walls, there would need to be an electrical failure at the fence and a failure at the secondary gate including the guard.

  “How the hell does that happen and no one notices?”

  A zombie on the Expressway in the heart of Zone 1, the safest area in San Jose. Hell, in all of Silicon Valley. The evidence lay crumpled a few feet away, but she could not believe it. There had never been a zombie on the Expressway. Never.

  What if it’s an outbreak?

  The idea sent an unpleasant shiver skittering down her spine. Miranda climbed into the Rover and turned around to drive back to the Bird Street exit. She looked in the rearview mirror at the slumped form, growing smaller by the second. It’s not an outbreak, she decided, remembering the condition of its clothes. This was an old zombie, not someone who had missed a dose.

  Delilah’s snout nuzzled Miranda’s ear. She nudged the dog away before Delilah could give her a wet willy.

  “This is definitely going to liven up some gate operator’s morning, Liley; that’s for sure.”

  2

  “And then he said he ‘didn’t have time for crazy chicks.’”

  Miranda and her best girlfriend Karen were having lunch at the Ethiopian Place. That wasn’t the restaurant’s name, just what everyone called it. If pressed, most Valley residents could not have supplied Star of Ethiopia’s actual name if it would save them from a pack of snarling zombies, but everyone knew The Ethiopian Place at San Pedro Square.

  They were seated outdoors at a café table on a gorgeous October day, marred only by the abject misery of Miranda’s lunch companion. Karen sat sniffling, salty tear tracks crusting her copper skin as she poked aimlessly at the Doro Tibs and Azifa with her injera. When they’d made their lunch date, Miranda had not considered that injera—the soft, porous bread that served as an edible fork—might also be used as a tissue as Karen went through the motions of eating. She had not actually dabbed her eyes or blown her nose on her injera—yet—but the sight of it passing so close to Karen’s sniffly nose only to be poked back into the food they were ostensibly sharing was starting to put Miranda off her lunch.

  “Why the hell did he lead me on for two months and make me think this was going somewhere if he wasn’t really interested?”

  Karen’s righteous indignation was followed by a fresh burst of tears. Miranda passed her a napkin. If she could get Karen to use the napkin, maybe she’d quit almost using her injera.

  Miranda could think of several reasons why this latest creep was not interested in anything more than fucking around, but the short answer was Karen dated jerks. For as long as Miranda had known her, there was something about handsome, cocky, macho jocks who thought the world revolved around them that attracted Karen like a magnet.

  “I’m just so tired of dating,” Karen whimpered. She wiped her puffy eyes on her sleeve. Her corkscrew curls stuck forlornly to her head. Her mouth compressed into a scowl. With her coppery skin, she looked like a too-old buckeye robbed of its satiny shine.

  “How is it that you always date such nice guys, Miri?”

  Miranda choked on her drink. The absurdity of Karen’s statement caused her to suck water down her windpipe.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” she sputtered between coughing fits. “The most action I’ve gotten lately was when you couldn’t find your seat belt in What’s-His-Face’s car and were fumbling under my ass for it.”

  “You know what I mean,” Karen replied. “Maybe it’s been a while, but Sam was—oh shit, Miri, I’m sorry.”

  Miranda waved her friend’s unease away. Talking about Sam didn’t sting like it used to. It wasn’t Karen who had gotten him killed.

  “And so was—” Karen stopped again, wincing before continuing gamely. “Well, and Connor, of course.”

  “You’re going back to college, Karen, eleven years easy. That’s a bit of a stretch,” Miranda replied, digging into the food. Karen’s embarrassment had distracted her so much that she had finally quit waving her contaminated injera everywhere.

  “Well, I don’t know what to do,” Karen sighed. “I’m thirty, single, and date assholes. I feel doomed.”

  Miranda was about to say something encouraging when a woman walked past their table, distracting her.

  “What is it?” Karen asked as she watched Miranda’s attention drift.

  “It’s that woman. Do I know her?”

  Karen turned in her seat to look. “The one in blue?” she asked. “She doesn’t look familiar to me.”

  Miranda’s brow furrowed. “Something’s not right about her, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

  The woman had stopped to look in a shop window. On further inspection, Miranda decided that she didn’t know her and she looked normal enough: a tall woman in a nice dress and expensive sunglasses. Her dog stood beside her.

  “I don’t know what it is you’re seeing, Miri. She looks like a regular person to me.”

  “I dunno, maybe my imagination is getting the better of me,” Miranda said, setting the matter aside. “That zombie on the Expressway got my day off to a strange start.”

  Miranda turned her attention back to her lunch when it hit her: the woman was wearing heels. Very high heels. She had not seen anyone in a pair in years.

  “It’s her shoes!” she hissed. “She’s wearing heels!”

  Karen regarded Miranda with a puzzled expression. “Why is that weird? Lots of women have started wearing them again. I just got a pair myself. I forgot how much they pinch your toes.”

  “Lots of women are wearing them?” Miranda squeaked, her voice getting higher with each word. “Since when?”

  “Not everyone plays in the dirt for a living and considers sneakers snazzy footwear, Miri.”

  “How do you outrun a zombie in high heels?”

  “Oh, Miri, honestly! You make it sound like there are zombies around every corner,” Karen said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Things are so much better now. Why not live a little?” Karen mustered a faint grin, no doubt at the prospect of having footwear fashion trends to follow.

  “Well, of course things are better,” Miranda replied. “But with all the people coming to San Jose for the vaccine and then finding out they can’t afford it, we have a pretty bad zombie problem just outside the walls. There’s still the occasional dasher. Zombie on the Expressway this morning.”

  Karen rolled her eyes in an aggrieved manner that always got under Miranda’s skin.

  “Dashers? Really? When’s the last time you saw someone fat enough to turn into a dasher?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “I can’t remember the last time I saw a dasher. And they end up slowing down and becoming shamblers once the fat is gone.” Karen paused. “Have they ever figured out how that works?”

  “If they figured out how something dead can metabolize anything, let alone how fat, fast zombies turn into gaunt, slow ones, I think we’d have heard about it. I know what you’re doing, Karen. You’re trying to change the subject.”

  “I’m not saying that people don’t have to be cautious,” Karen allowed. “But there are places where there h
aven’t been zombies in what…seven, eight years? Like right here. What’s wrong with wanting to try and be a little normal?”

  Miranda felt her brain begin to swell. One more ridiculous word out of Karen’s mouth and it would explode.

  “Anything that doesn’t take what I affectionately refer to as reality into account isn’t just stupid, it’s dangerous. Next, you’re going to tell me you’re moving to one of the gated La-La Lands.”

  “Sweetie, if I had the money I’d have moved there yesterday. And so would you, if you were honest with yourself.”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Miranda snapped.

  “Yes you would, Miranda Tucci, and you know it! Why are we even arguing about this? You’re supposed to be cheering me up, not biting my head off.”

  Miranda wanted to tell Karen how wrong she was but swallowed her retort. “Maybe we should get some dessert?” Dessert was always a good olive branch. Karen had a sweet tooth.

  “Are you kidding? I have to get back to my dating weight, and I have to get back to work. I’ll take care of the check.”

  Karen was out of her seat and through the restaurant door before Miranda could say anything more. Miranda couldn’t believe Karen did not see the sheer insanity of wearing shoes that were not made for walking, let alone running or fighting. Was she being more irrational than usual because of the breakup, or were people really getting back to “normal” and she had somehow missed it?

  The waiter came up to the table. “Would you like your check, Miss, or will you be getting a coffee?”

  “Uh, no, thanks,” Miranda said. “My friend went in to pay. She’s in a hurry to get back to work.”

  The waiter paled. “I— She shouldn’t need to do that,” he stammered. “I’ll pay your bill myself, I, let me get these dishes out of your way.”

  The waiter continued to apologize. His hands shook so much that the dishes he picked up rattled. Miranda opened her mouth to assure him it was no big deal when she saw the tattoo on his neck: an orange triangle overlapped by a thin black circle with three black pointy-ended semi-circles intersecting it—the universal symbol for a biohazard. Her hand touched the green triangle tattoo on her own neck, just under her right jaw, before reaching for his arm.

  She only succeeded in startling the poor man. He jerked his arm away so abruptly that a glass tumbled off his tray. Heads turned at the hollow crash of the breaking glass. As he stooped to pick up the pieces, the waiter began to weep.

  Miranda crouched beside the distraught man. She picked up a piece of the shattered glass and set it on his tray.

  “It’s okay. Please don’t worry. We would never complain.”

  Pathetic, gratuitous apologies or wretched, abject gratitude—she wasn’t sure which was worse.

  3

  Miranda doubled over, breathing heavily as she recovered from a sprint up the six flights of stairs to the top story of Farm #1. After her weird morning and then lunch with Karen, she needed to dispel the funky energy she seemed to be attracting. Running stairs was as good a way as any and it kept her in shape in case she was attacked by all those zombies Karen thought she was being over the top about.

  She opened the door, breathing deep. The tomatoes were her favorite part of the farm. There had been a Sun Gold that had topped fifteen feet during the last growing cycle. Nothing was going quite that crazy just now, but the plants were doing well.

  The same could not be said for the irrigation system on this floor, however, and the tech was not in yet, so she would look at it herself. The place buzzed with activity as people tried to catch up on the morning’s work. Miranda liked when it was busy like this. It reminded her of when they were first trying to get the farms off the ground.

  Some had scoffed when she first suggested the idea of a vertical farm. Who was she, a snot-nosed college kid who’d never even graduated, to think she should be in charge of growing enough food for everyone? Holders of that opinion were not impressed by Miranda’s internship at the Chez Panisse Foundation’s Edible Schoolyard Program. Others were daunted at the thought of building anything so ambitious. Miranda had come across vertical farms her freshman year and fallen in love with the concept immediately. The idea was so elegant and made so much sense that Miranda was sure it would never become a reality on the scale that it should. Not in America, anyway.

  The idea was to have multi-story buildings in cities that were essentially huge greenhouses to grow food. The controlled environment would mitigate crop failure, making organic farming easier. Farmland could be allowed to return to its natural state, restoring ecological systems. Burning fossil fuels to transport food would be reduced because it would not have to be shipped all over the world. And if there was ever a disruption in supply lines because of a disaster, cities wouldn’t run out of food within days.

  Miranda spent hours poring over schematics for glass and steel buildings with thermodynamic heating and cooling systems, solar-powered irrigation systems, and wind-powered electrical systems. She thought the designs were inspired, never thinking she’d get the chance to manage one, never mind build one. Farm #1 was in the converted North Parking Garage on the San Jose State University campus. When the first harvest from the pilot was compared to those that were grown traditionally, the project picked up steam. The vertical out-produced the regular farm by thirty percent, better than they’d projected. Even without the use of heavy machinery, building from scratch proved more efficient than conversions. Once they started using purpose-built buildings, the percentage jumped to forty-five.

  There were still traditional farms. Replacing them had never been the idea; having a more secure food source was. There were five verticals between the San Jose State and Santa Clara University campuses so far, as well as the farm at UC Berkeley. Just thinking about the success of the project made Miranda so happy she thought she would burst.

  She squatted next to the pump for the sixth floor and took off the casing. No blockages on the intake and outtake tubes she discovered after a quick visual inspection. The pump had power and the water pressure was good, so it was not a leak. It had to be mechanical. Miranda pried off the motor cover to take a look. Worst case scenario we swap the whole thing out and have maintenance do the repairs.

  She had the motor almost half taken apart when she heard footsteps and voices coming her way. One voice belonged to Alan Reynolds, the City Council Administrative Liaison.

  Privately, Miranda referred to Alan as ‘The Troll.’ His predecessors had understood that the job was a bone the Jesuits of Santa Clara University—who ran the farms—threw to placate the City. The City, in turn, used the liaison to spy on the Jesuits. There had not been much to report of late since the rocky relationship between the Council and the Jesuits was calm just now, but that could change in a heartbeat. Everyone knew how it worked except Alan. He had ideas about how to run the Farm and thought his position gave him a say about Ops. Miranda had decided that Alan was not that smart. Self-important and well-connected? Absolutely. But smart? Not in this lifetime.

  “It is hard to find a good gardener!” Alan’s droning voice floated down the aisle. “Every time I find an adequate one, it takes a month to get them to do things the way I want. I get maybe six months, and then one day some random person shows up saying my gardener turned, but he’ll be happy to take over.”

  Alan sounded aggrieved, as if his gardener woes would be the death of him. Miranda had abandoned all pretense of trying to work with Alan months ago and instead concentrated her efforts on finding some pretext to get rid of him. If he’d just get caught out in something even the City can’t defend, like kiddie porn, she thought.

  A deep pang of longing blossomed in her chest. Lately she’d begun fantasizing about arranging an accident to take care of the Alan problem but when she made a wisecrack to that effect, Father Walter had not been amused. She grinned, remembering the look of horror on his face, as well as his sharp admonishment that she would do no such thing.

  As if I’d ever stoop as
low as murder for that waste of space.

  The footsteps drew closer. Even though she knew it was coming, it still put every nerve on edge.

  “Knock knock!”

  She didn’t know where Alan had picked up the habit of slinking up behind people and treating the beginning of a knock-knock joke as a legitimate greeting. Business school, most likely.

  “What do you want?” she asked, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

  “I want to introduce you to Mary, our new irrigation tech.”

  A new irrigation tech? Alan had Miranda’s attention now.

  “What are you talking about?” she said as she stood up. “You don’t hire for Ops and we don’t need an irrigation tech, especially now.”

  “Ah, yes, about that… I’m afraid I had to let Timmy go.”

  Alan looked down at his shoes, then up at the ceiling. He was so tall that his raised head left her looking at the bottom of his bobbing Adam’s apple. His habit of not looking her in the eye was almost as annoying as the knock knock crap.

  “You had to let Timmy go? I’m gonna use short sentences so you understand me. You don’t hire for the Farm. I do.”

  “You know that Timmy was bitten—”

  “And he got to the hospital in time so they could dose him.”

  Alan lowered his beady blue eyes to hers, his lips pursed like he’d been sucking a lemon.

  “We’ve never had a doser working at the Farm and I don’t think it’s a good idea to set a precedent. I don’t have to remind you that his Level 1 skill rating is the only reason he was eligible for post-bite sponsorship in the first place, and that comes out of the general fund, not the Ops budget.” Seeing Miranda’s stunned expression, Alan’s voice became bold. “You should have consulted me before you signed off on treatment.”