by Guy James
Sven shrugged. “No?”
“No. I mean he was weird and crazy but even when he did what he did at the Wegmans, it was his way of trying to protect us. He had his reasons then. Spreading the virus and killing millions, I don’t think the Milt from before was capable of that.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“So as far as the ones in the river,” Lorie said, “do you think they could travel all over the world?”
“Maybe, and we don’t know how or if the virus can continue to be transmitted by them. The scientists—” Sven sighed, “—the scientists who are left, will have to figure that one out quickly.”
Lorie nodded.
“But we’ll start here, first,” Sven said. “There’s a lot to be done just in Manhattan, not to mention the rest of the country, okay?”
Lorie nodded. “Okay.”
“We’re gonna wait out the infection, clean up what’s left, and then do everything we can to make sure this never happens again.”
117
Jane’s pen stopped in place. She looked up from her notebook. She was sitting on the couch in the living room. Wisps of steam floated up from the cup of tea on the coffee table in front of her. “Did you just check on Lorie?”
“Yeah,” Sven said.
“How’s she doing?”
“I think she’s alright. She’s…she’s a tough kid. You know.” He walked over to the coffee table and stared at the rising tendrils of steam. He knew the smell. It was Earl Grey, Jane’s favorite.
“That’s the understatement of the century.”
“Yeah,” Sven said. He sat down next to Jane. “What are you writing?”
“Oh, nothing,” Jane said. “Just trying to keep my brain sharp. There’s only so much Sudoku I can take.”
Jane smiled inwardly and pressed her pen into the period of the last sentence she had written. The book was finally done. All things considered, it hadn’t taken her long to write.
Sven the Zombie Slayer, her account of the events of the Virginia outbreak, was complete. If there were other books still in her to write, if she was to write the account of what had happened and was still happening in New York and describe the events of the final outbreak, that would have to wait. The most important book, the one that she had been writing for Sven, was done.
Jane hoped that when Sven read it, the title would grow on him. Or rather, she hoped that he would grow to understand the title. She knew how he felt about the term “zombie,” but, she also knew that deep down, he knew—they all knew—that he was the zombie slayer. That was what the world had called on him to become, and so he had. The zombie slayer was what people needed him to be, and no matter how much he fought against the meaning of his title, that was what he was, and there was no changing that.
Sven got up and walked to the window. He stared out.
Jane looked at him. He seemed restless and looked haggard. It was the first time she had seen him unshaven for a while. His facial features appeared more pronounced, more angular, like he had lost weight again. Jane looked at the book, then at Sven again.
She hoped that the book, the way that she had written it, would lend him strength.
“You’ll need it,” she whispered.
Jane got up, picked up her cup of tea, and joined Sven by the window. She stood by his side and watched him as he watched the movement of the tidal strait called the East River, the shifting body of water that regularly changed direction but stayed largely in the same place, incapable of escaping its natural design.
Table of Contents
Copyright
PART I
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
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102
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109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
PART II
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
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28
29
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31
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117
