The End in All Beginnings

by John F. D. Taff

  Her hair looked just as shiny as before, her skin as pale and translucent. The burning almond reek of them came off her, and Durand took it in, decided that it wasn’t so bad after all.

  Shrugging out of the backpack, he ripped the zipper open, pulled out the long, pale green sundress he’d found in the store, held it up to see if it might fit her. The shoes were a little dicier. It was hard to tell how small her feet were. She was probably no more than five feet four inches tall; likely twenty-four or twenty-five years old.

  Scott hung back as he did this, gnawing at the ragged stumps of his nails.

  “You gonna help?” Durand asked, turning to him.

  Nodding absently, Scott took a single step.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  Scott snapped his eyes to Durand’s, shook his head innocently.

  Durand touched his shoulder, noticing that Scott flinched, that his eyes bulged in his head.

  “There,” he said, pointing to a side door that led into the store. On the other side of the fence was a similar door about ten feet away along the same wall. “Go into the store, then come around so you’re inside the lumberyard.”

  “And then…”

  Durand turned to him, smiled. “Step over to the fence and occupy her attention.”

  Scott paled visibly.

  “You’ll have the fence between you.” Durand winked, slapping him on the back. “She’s not gonna chew through it.”

  Scott smirked, opened his mouth to say something sarcastic. Instead he walked to the entrance, his shoulders slumping, opened the door, disappeared inside.

  When he was gone, Durand took a step closer to her, then another. With only about a yard and a half to go, he noticed that her movements stopped, her head cocked as if she’d smelled something. Durand heard the guttural sounds she made deep in her throat.

  The lumberyard door opened and Scott exited, hesitated, walked to the fence. When he was less than three feet away, the girl uttered a groan of hunger, pushed into the fence, straining against it, her fingers curled into the links.

  Scott jumped back. “Jesus tap-dancing Christ! I’m so fucking outta here!”

  “No! She’s not gonna get you. Just distract her while I do this.”

  “This is fucked up, bro. Truly fucked up.” Scott held his ground but couldn’t look at the girl, couldn’t look into her eyes.

  Tentatively, Durand stepped nearer. He’d never been this close to one of them, and the smell of almonds was almost overpowering. But all her attention was focused on Scott. He could hear the disturbing sound of her teeth clacking together, snapping.

  Durand patted the grip of the gun tucked in his waistband, just in case, then lifted his arm slowly, reached out.

  “Jesus, bro…don’t fucking touch her…”

  But Durand ignored him, extended his hand, let it graze the top of her bare shoulder.

  She didn’t turn on him, didn’t stop trying to get at Scott.

  Durand’s hand lingered there, feeling the softness of her skin. So strange to feel skin this cool. It drifted over her shoulder, across the nape of her neck. The ends of her hair, so fine and soft, tickled at the back of his hand.

  “Ummm…bro…this is weird. Can we please, please wrap this up?”

  Durand removed his hand slowly, as much to avoid drawing her attention as to let his hand linger on her cool, silky skin.

  He saw the strap of her purse across her shoulder, around her neck.

  “Just a sec,” he told Scott, then backed away, opened his pack and rooted inside. He returned with scissors, cut the purse’s strap. It fell to the ground with a weary plop. On a whim, he snipped the one thin strap that held the top of the sundress in place. To his surprise, it fluttered to the ground, pooling at her feet.

  “This is some seriously fucked up shit you’re doin’, man. Seriously.”

  She was thinly built, but nicely, with a pleasing symmetry to the width of her shoulders, the length of her back, the curve of her buttocks. She wore a plain white bra and a plain white pair of panties. Her skin, as it slid across her shoulders, swept up the arch of her hips, down her legs, was soft and white as a cloud.

  Broken only by the hole that someone had blasted in her.

  The wound, about the size of an egg, was low on her left side, near her kidneys. It was bright and wet with blood, but it had stopped leaking long ago. Durand couldn’t guess as to who had shot her or why or whether it was before or after she was dead.

  A sudden tidal wave of sadness and pity rolled over him, and tears filled his eyes. To hide them, he turned, grabbed the shoes from the pack. Kneeling carefully behind her, he ran a hand along the calf of her left leg, the one missing a shoe. Feeling like the prince in the Cinderella story, he slipped the white canvas flat he’d chosen onto her foot.

  Impossibly, crazily, it fit.

  He lowered that foot to the ground again, took the other, removed that shoe and slid the remaining new one on.

  For a moment, just a moment, he thought he would lean forward just a bit and let his lips touch the back of her cool calf, kiss the soft, firm skin there.

  But he didn’t.

  “You about finished with your fucking Hallmark moment?”

  “No.”

  “No? Fuck…no?”

  “Well, we can’t leave her in her underwear.”

  Slipping the new sundress over her head involved both of them climbing the opposite side of the fence, getting her to reach up to them and extend both arms fully, like a child waiting for her mother to slip a shirt over her body. It went on easier than it had any right to, slithered into place over her as if she had simply shrugged into it.

  They descended the fence, and when they had retreated beyond that strange, magical point, whatever that distance was, she lost interest in them. Her mouth went slack, her arms slid down the chain-link, her eyes stared straight, not seeing them. She bumped into the fence, turned a little right, bumped again, turned a little left, bumped again.

  Before leaving, Durand hefted the backpack. Almost as an afterthought, he grabbed the purse, too.

  Scott gave him a strange, measuring look, but said nothing.

  They left her there, in her new dress, her new shoes, the best dressed zombie in Millstadt.

  As they walked back to the Bargain Barn, Scott turned to him.

  “If you’re thinking of coming back tomorrow and applying her makeup, dude, count me out.”

  * * *

  “Her name’s Beth McClary,” Durand said later that night, over a pan of Stouffer’s frozen lasagna, a loaf of garlic cheese bread and a bottle of red wine. They ate dinner under a gazebo on a patio furniture display. Music from the stereo in Electronics played in the background.

  Durand ate with gusto, but Scott picked at his food, pushed it around on the plate, sniffed at the wine.

  “How’d you find that out?” Scott asked, not really all that interested.

  “Her purse. She had a driver’s license and all sorts of stuff,” Durand replied, shoveling in another forkful of crusty, overcooked lasagna. “I was right. She’s twenty-four years old. If she’s a townie, she probably went to school with you. How old did you say you were?”

  “I’m twenty-eight,” Scott said, looking up guiltily. “I don’t remember a Beth…what’s her name…”

  “McClary.”

  “Nope. After my time.”

  Durand chewed thoughtfully, knew with quiet clarity that Scott was lying. There was no way he was twenty-eight, no way. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three at most. And if he was lying about that, there was something deeper going on that Durand couldn’t put his finger on.

  “She lived on Washington Street, in those new apartments,” he continued, letting it go for now.

  Scott harrumphed, dropped his fork onto his plate. “Overpriced apartments filled with snotty, tight-assed people too hoighty-toighty for the rest of us. Lot of fucking good it did ‘em.”

  “What th
e fuck is wrong with you?”

  “You, that’s what’s fucking wrong with me,” Scott said, his face turning red. “You love her. Don’t you? You fucking love a fucking zombie. Do you know how seriously fucked up that is…how seriously fucked up what we did today is?”

  “I don’t…” Durand began. What was the point in denying?

  “You do! Don’t fucking lie. Otherwise, what was that all that shit today?”

  Durand said nothing, toyed with the food on his plate.

  Scott’s face twisted in anger. “And will you please turn off that fucking music? Fucking Linda whatever-the-hell-her-name-is is really getting on my fucking last nerve!”

  He pushed himself from the table, stalked off.

  After a minute, Durand heard the chaotic sounds of Scott’s video games echoing through the store, turned up extra loud to drown out the stereo.

  * * *

  Durand awoke later that night, his head throbbing, his gut churning, his mind spinning. Too much wine, too much lasagna.

  Too many thoughts of her, of Beth McClary.

  He lay there, listened to every click, bump and tick the Bargain Barn had to offer, echoing in its cavernous guts. Scott must be asleep; there were no gun blasts, no explosions. Durand looked at the clock radio on his nightstand. It was just a little after 2:00 a.m.

  Sighing at what he was thinking, he threw the covers back, grabbed his clothes, padded quietly to the washroom. He visited the toilet first, and when he was done, he splashed cold water on his face, looked at himself in the mirror. He needed a shave. There were bags under his eyes, and he’d have to find some way of cutting his own hair soon. But he figured he still looked pretty damn good for a man at the end of the world.

  * * *

  The moon wasn’t yet full, but it was close, and its brilliant, silver light shone down unfiltered by clouds. He almost didn’t need the flashlight he had brought with him. The night was cool. Summer was fading fast, and the hot, humid edge of the air was dulling. He wondered how the zombies would handle the cold weather. Would it have any effect on them at all? Probably not. Nothing else did.

  He wondered how he and Scott would handle the cold weather. The Bargain Barn had heaters, sure, but what would happen when the power went off? And he knew it would, sooner or later. No lights, no power, no water.

  What then?

  He walked by the lumberyard, but Beth wasn’t there, still bumping into the fence as he’d assumed. Where could she be? What direction would she have gone, and how far?

  When he got to Jefferson Street, he stopped.

  A few of them straggled by, but only one came close, and Durand shot him before he even had a chance to utter a groan. He thought it might have been his gym teacher from high school.

  She wasn’t at the hardware store, and Durand shined the light to see if there were any clues as to where she might have gone.

  Yeah, like she would have left a note or something.

  That struck him as silly, and he laughed, but stopped suddenly. The sound of his laughter on the night air, loud and alone, spooked him deeply.

  He turned on Fourth Avenue, then on Monroe. He shot two more almost absently, but he didn’t see her.

  He circled back, passed the Suds-N-Duds. Just as he was about to give up, return to bed, he saw her. It was the dress, the new green dress that caught his eye, a pale silvery turquoise in the moonlight. She stood next to a tree at the entrance to Millstone Park, leaned against it, almost as if—

  Almost as if she slept.

  But that was impossible, they’d never slept, at least he’d never seen them sleep or even rest before.

  He shined the light on her from across the street, but she didn’t move, didn’t react. So he went to her. When he stepped onto the path that led into the park, he stopped. He was perhaps a dozen feet from her. She leaned against the oak tree, her arms limp at her sides, her head resting against its bark.

  And her eyes were shut.

  For a moment, he didn’t know what to do. Was she really dead now?

  And if she was sleeping, what exactly did that mean?

  He was dimly aware that he’d not even thought about taking the gun from his waistband.

  When he was two feet from her, well within the zone, he paused. He put the light directly in her face, watched her eyes. A small dark smear across her lips and chin marred her looks; otherwise it was the beautiful, serene face of a young woman sleeping peacefully.

  He heard small, grunting breaths coming out of her. His heart racing, he paused, but her eyes remained closed.

  Her smell enveloped him, entered his nostrils, his mouth. He reached out again, knowing that he shouldn’t, knowing that it was stupid, futile, even weird, as Scott had suggested. But he reached out anyway, let his fingers stroke her cheek.

  No reaction. He was almost disappointed. Almost.

  Another small step and he was going to do it, he had to do it, it mattered somehow to him, mattered in a way that he didn’t understand.

  His brain seemed unable to argue. It simply shrugged, stepped aside.

  And his heart, his mad, foolish, needful heart won.

  He closed his eyes, kissed her cheek, softly.

  When she still didn’t react, he slid his lips across her face, found hers and kissed them. They were cold and sticky, but he kissed them anyway, gently, offering only the lightest touch.

  But it was a kiss, his first kiss with Beth McClary, his first kiss with a dead girl.

  Backing away, he licked his lips, expecting to taste almonds, and instead tasted blood, flat and metallic. Absently, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Beth still slept. And Durand thought her the most beautiful thing in the world, so lovely, so fragile, so innocent looking.

  He stayed there, in the early morning light, under the waning moon, and watched her.

  On the way back to the Bargain Barn, he shot six more zombies, smiling as he did so.

  When he crawled into his bed, he saw that it was almost 4:00 a.m.

  But he remained there for at least an hour, thinking of her, wondering what she was doing, picturing her sad, beautiful face. He imagined lying next to her, looking into that sweet face, sleeping in her arms.

  As the sun came up, he finally fell asleep, the smell of burned, bitter almonds in his nose.

  * * *

  “Are you going out to drool over her again?” Scott said from his recliner. “That’s all you fucking do lately. It’s like you’re fucking stalking the undead.”

  “Are you going to sit in here and play video games all day? That’s all you fucking do lately,” Durand shot back. “Don’t begrudge me the opportunity to go out and see the one thing these days that makes me happy. Besides, what difference does it make to you?”

  Scott stood and came around the chair, which surprised Durand.

  “Because she’s a corpse, man. A fucking corpse! And you know what that makes you, bro? That makes you a fucking narcoleptic. A fucking corpse lover!”

  Astonished, Durand looked at him for a moment, trying to decide whether to get mad or laugh.

  Instead, he simply said, “Necrophiliac.”

  “What?”

  “The word is necrophiliac. Pull your head out of your ass and read a book for a change.”

  With that, he turned and walked away.

  After five steps, he glanced back at Scott, who still stood there, fuming silently.

  “Oh, and I’m not a necrophiliac, for your information. She’s just better company than you.”

  * * *

  Durand tried not to let the argument with Scott ruin his good mood. He’d thought about spending the day just watching her, seeing how she spent her time. He knew it was silly…and he knew what Scott would say.

  There was no way he could articulate to Scott what he was feeling for Beth; he found it difficult enough to articulate it to himself.

  So, there was no way that he could admit that he was in love with a zombie.

&nb
sp; In love with someone, something, that could never accept that love, return it.

  He had no experience with love, real love, and so he had no experience with love that wasn’t—that couldn’t ever be—returned.

  But he knew that he had to do something with it, make something of it, or let it go entirely.

  Either way, he would have to live with it for the rest of his life.

  He knew one other thing, too.

  He was not prepared to let it go just yet.

  * * *

  Durand wanted to know all there was about her, more than he could learn from the contents of her purse. She was born August 16, 1989. Elizabeth Anne McClary. She drove a Honda of some kind. She had pictures of various people in her wallet—parents, grandparents, nieces and nephews. He didn’t find a picture of anyone who looked as if he might be a boyfriend. She had a checking account at First Community Bank in town. She worked at PPI, a plant that made commercial laundry equipment.

  Durand drove past the laundry plant every day on his way to the concrete plant, at least, he used to. He wondered how many times he’d seen her car in the parking lot, maybe followed her to work or back into town. He wondered how many times he’d seen her in restaurants, in the grocery store, at the gas station and never noticed her.

  As he walked through town thinking of her, he passed Lyndon B. Johnson High School, his alma mater, class of 2000.

  If she went to high school here, she’d be in the yearbook.

  * * *

  When he pushed the door open, the school had a musty, abandoned smell. There were other odors, too; mildew, chalk dust and something else, something he couldn’t place. Maybe spoiled food in the cafeteria.

  There were no bodies in the halls, in the classrooms, but plenty of scattered papers, discarded books, articles of stray clothing and abandoned backpacks disgorging their contents. If kids were here that morning, they dropped everything and fled with the adults or, well, the limited answers here hadn’t changed in the last few weeks.

  He knew exactly where he was going. Even though it had been nearly a decade and a half since he’d walked these halls as a student, little had changed. The library occupied the central portion of the building, and the doors leading to it were thrown wide open. This space still managed to maintain a sense of dignity and decorum amidst the squalor, though the mess in here was substantially less.