A speckled fish pa.s.sed between Guts and me; it had a pink stripe down its side like a Nike swoosh. Then a salmon, steel gray and bigger than Isaac, its mouth shaped like a bottle opener. He gave us the fish-eye and moved on.

We could swim forever this way, I thought. To the ends of the earth. To the ocean or the gulf. Until the water gets shallow and the weather turns warm and we crawl onto the sh.o.r.e, a little worse for the wear, but still striving, still bleating our clarion cry for brains and more brains. For life.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

WE FLOATED AND swam like mermaids. I slipped in and out of consciousness, half-frozen and half-Buddha, one step closer to nirvana and pure being. swam like mermaids. I slipped in and out of consciousness, half-frozen and half-Buddha, one step closer to nirvana and pure being.

I was a b.u.t.terfly, a jellyfish. My life as a human grew more and more remote. The trappings of culture, all we created, the whole bloated project of humanity, from the pyramids to Frank Gehry, Pindar to Bukowski, suet to sushi, all of it as ephemeral as an Etch-A-Sketch. Like Ros, I remembered random events from my past as if they had happened to someone in a movie.

As children, my sister and I spent a few weeks every summer with Oma and Opa in their cottage in Seattle. It smelled like lavender potpourri and boiled meat. The four of us played Scrabble and Oma always won, clasping her thick fingers together and bringing them to her lips as she studied the board.

"We escaped the camps," she said, "so you could be here, kleine kleine Jack. Safe and happy with us." Jack. Safe and happy with us."

When Oma and Opa died, they left my father a sizable legacy of property, stocks and bonds, old money from Austria, plus new money they'd earned in America. When my father and mother died, that legacy was pa.s.sed down to my sister and me. Although I'd produced no heirs of my own, my sister had two sons set to inherit our world.

Or did she? And whose world was it? My nephews and my sister, were they alive, dead, or living dead? Animal, vegetable, or mineral?

We pa.s.sed over a wondrous fish feeding on the bottom. It must have been seven feet long, coral pink, with spikes on its back like a dragon. It didn't look up at us, just continued to suck on the sand like an aquatic vacuum cleaner. No doubt that species of fish has lived unchanged for millennia, eating whatever settles on lake bottoms, and growing and maturing as a result. Releasing eggs in the spring, reproducing, then getting old and dying. Perfect in its design, no need to evolve. Like a c.o.c.kroach or an alligator.

I rolled my torso, undulating. I could feel Ros pulling on us, his flippers an advantage in this environment. I pulled on the rope, bringing Guts closer to me. A snail was on his cheek and I ripped it off.

Zombies are the next step in human evolution. The virus, our birth, the apocalyptic mad scientist shtick-no Frankenstein's creature or end of the world, but a giant leap forward. Progress. Like Vonnegut's Galapagos, Galapagos, back to the sea. back to the sea.

We eat but don't grow. We reproduce but don't need eggs or mitosis, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n or even love. We are as simple as fish. Simpler than fish.

And as Henry Zombie Th.o.r.eau said: simplify, simplify, simplify.

We swam past another fish, this one about half the size of Guts. It was the color of a tin can with a splash of orange on its fins. I reached out and grabbed it under the gills. The fish thrashed; its tail was strong and slapped my shoulder, but I brought it to me.

The first bite yielded a mouthful of scales. The second bite was all bone, but I ripped through it anyway. Because the third bite hit braindirt: minuscule, grainy, and cold. Entirely unsatisfying. Like jerking off instead of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g; playing checkers instead of chess; watching Gus Van Sant's shot-by-shot remake of Psycho Psycho. Looking at a photograph of Guernica Guernica.

Still, I ate the fish. You take what you can get. The water turned pink with its blood and the gang gathered round, hungry for stink.

We chewed on its stomach, intestines, tail, fins, spine, the solid meat of its sides. What I wouldn't have given for hot brains. Ros popped a fish eye in his mouth and said something that sounded like, "Needs wasabi."

That's why I loved Ros. Like his namesake, he was comic relief.

A FLASHBACK, PRE-ZOMBIE. As vivid as reality. Lucid dreaming. Lucy dreaming. As vivid as reality. Lucid dreaming. Lucy dreaming.

"Jack?" Lucy asked, her voice lilting up at the end of my name. "Why did you marry me?"

I closed the book I'd been reading, marking my place with my thumb: Rene Descartes's Principles of Philosophy Principles of Philosophy.

"Can someone say high-maintenance?" I said, laughing. "You know why."

We were in my study with its book-lined walls, big oak desk, Persian rug, Macintosh laptop, and antique china hutch loaded with pop culture ephemera-my Pez collection, a Sigmund Freud action figure, a can of Billy Beer, a Magic 8 Ball. Lucy was dusting, although she didn't have to. Someone came in once a week.

"We can't reproduce," she said. "Isn't that what marriage is for? To start a family?"

"Tell that to our gay friends."

"Touche."

Lucy had just suffered her third miscarriage, and the doctors warned it would likely happen again.

"I married you," I said, "so no one else could have you. It was a selfish endeavor."

Lucy wiped my vintage Archies lunch box with an old sock. "Have you thought more about adopting?" she asked.

I put the book on my desk and gave her my full attention. Her dark hair stuck up in the back like Alfalfa's. She was trying not to cry.

"C'mere," I said, and held out my arms. She snuggled onto my lap and buried her face in my neck. Her bony a.s.s jutted into my thigh. She was all bones and heart, that girl. Bones and heart.

"I don't want some stranger's baby," she whispered. "I want my own."

I rubbed her back and petted her short hair. It had been a tough week, a tough year. For Lucy especially.

"Do you want to keep trying?" I asked. "I'm game if you are."

"I'll probably fail again."

"Don't say that. You didn't fail," I said. "How about concentrating on your writing? You could finish your novel."

"My novel is nothing but self-involved drivel. It's not gonna change the world."

"In all honesty, neither is a child."

"But ours would be special. It would grow up to cure cancer. Or AIDS."

"Or start a major war."

"We could raise a Hitler!"

"Or a radio talk show host," I said.

"Maybe I'm not meant to be a mom."

"n.o.body's meant to be anything. And even if we had a kid, what then? He would be born, grow up, be happy sometimes, sad mostly, become bitter as he aged and didn't realize his dreams, and then die old and alone. That's it. End of story."

"Don't forget take up s.p.a.ce and use valuable resources."

"You're absolutely right. Every human being is a drain on the ecosystem. We're overrunning the planet as it is. Perhaps it's for the best."

Lucy refused to give up, however. We tried for the next several months, but I ate her before she could get pregnant again. For that I'm glad: Her barren womb nurtured me when I needed it most.

CHAPTER TWENTY

DAYS Pa.s.sED, WEEKS, a month, who knows? Water is timeless and we were part of it, adrift in the soup of it, barely aware, eating fish only when the hunger became unbearable. a month, who knows? Water is timeless and we were part of it, adrift in the soup of it, barely aware, eating fish only when the hunger became unbearable.

Way above us, there was the shadow of a boat. Ros pulled me to him and pointed to it. The five of us gathered together and kicked upward. We were frogmen, navy SEALs, Ros's flippers doing most of the hard work. As we neared the surface, sun. Light sparkling on the lake. A sky-blue sky with wisps of high clouds.

I poked my forehead and eyes out of the water. The others did the same, staying mostly submerged, like computer-generated soldiers in a video game. One of Joan's eyeb.a.l.l.s was filmed over with weeds like a gra.s.s eye-patch. Ros's metal head was warped and rusty.

We swam up to the vessel, which was a sailboat, a yacht actually, thirty or forty feet long. I poked my whole head out of the lake. Maria Sangria Maria Sangria read the script painted on the side. read the script painted on the side.

It was quiet out of the water, without the pressure of the lake. A breeze whistled in my ear. No sounds came from the boat and I didn't sense any humans on it either; my shoulder was calm, dead flesh. As tingly as a T-bone. There was no sh.o.r.e that I could see. Water water everywhere; we were right in the middle of the lake.

Ros pulled us around Maria Sangria Maria Sangria until we found the anchor. Annie kept slipping underwater; we all did. Zombies aren't good swimmers. We sink like tombstones. until we found the anchor. Annie kept slipping underwater; we all did. Zombies aren't good swimmers. We sink like tombstones.

I pointed at Guts, then at the rope attached to the anchor. Joan and I set Guts free, untying his metaphorical umbilical cord, and the urchin shimmied on up.

"Look at him go," Ros said, his voice deep and wet as a sea monster's.

We did our best to keep each other afloat, but Ros kept drifting away. Joan held out her hand and he grabbed it. We pulled him back into our bobbing circle.

Treading water with my friends, I lifted my face up to the heavens, letting the sun dry my skin, which was flapping from being so long submerged. I felt an optimism I'd never experienced as a human. My soul was clear and sweet. We were elemental creatures-water, wind, earth, fire.

Professor Jack would've made an Earth, Wind and Fire joke here, inserting a song t.i.tle or an ironic comment on their costumes or cultural significance. Zombie Jack refrains.

"Mooooooo!" Guts lowed from Maria Sangria, Maria Sangria, throwing a rope ladder over the side. We made our way over to it and hauled ourselves up, but it was hard going, particularly for Annie. Ros helped her, his hand cupping her half a.s.s, pushing her up while caressing the bite site on her ankle. Those days underwater had diminished her cognition and they certainly hadn't helped her coordination. throwing a rope ladder over the side. We made our way over to it and hauled ourselves up, but it was hard going, particularly for Annie. Ros helped her, his hand cupping her half a.s.s, pushing her up while caressing the bite site on her ankle. Those days underwater had diminished her cognition and they certainly hadn't helped her coordination.

This is your brain, the Reagan-era public service announcement goes. This is your brain as a waterlogged zombie.

Like a pirate, I landed on deck and searched the boat. Avast! And ahoy! Food! Old, desiccated, wrinkly, salty, tough food. Starved to death, perhaps. Or dehydrated. But who cared? One in a deck chair; another facedown on the ground. Two more reclining on cots in the cabin. A male in a yellow slicker, probably the captain, slumped over the wheel.

Human jerky. One for each of us.

"Bon appet.i.t!" said Ros.

I went for the woman in the chair. She was middle-aged and had once been fat, judging from the excess skin. I stood behind her, my legs wobbly and sliding around on the wet deck. I put my hands over her ears, pulled up with all my strength, and screwed off her head.

You've seen this scene in a million movies: the unnatural red of the human's veins and tendons glisten and throb as the head is liberated from the body; the victim screams before, during, and even after the procedure. The proverbial chicken. Quite often the beheading is presented as comeuppance or karma for premarital s.e.x or mistreating women or abusing power. In other words, the victim is a bad, immoral human who deserves death by zombies, death by Leatherface, death by vampires or giant spiders.

There was no narrative significance to this decapitation, however. The lady had been long dead: No blood flowed from her grisly neck; no justice was served. I neither knew nor cared whether she was kind to children and small animals, whether she was faithful to her husband or spent too much money on her clothing. Whether she survived as long as she had at the expense of others or because she saved others.

All I knew was her brains tasted like chocolate cheesecake does to a dieter. A little slice of heaven.

"Better than fish, eh, matey?" Ros asked, munching on pieces of the captain. Ros's face was Technicolor mold-an autumn of reds, browns, and golds.

"Arrrrr," I said, tilting my head to the side and squinting one eye closed in the universal pirate face. I said, tilting my head to the side and squinting one eye closed in the universal pirate face.

"Arrrrr," Ros replied, baring his teeth. Ros replied, baring his teeth.

Shiver me timbers. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum. I was a parrot-on-the-shoulder, peg-leg, skull-and-crossbones bada.s.s mother-f.u.c.ker.

s.h.i.t, pirates ain't got nothing on us zombies.

AFTER OUR MEAL, we regrouped on the p.o.o.p deck. Ros was lying on his side, picking his teeth with a piece of wood. He pulled out a black molar and threw it into the lake. A bird landed on the railing of the boat, some water creature with stilt legs and a long orange beak. She looked at us with eyes blank as a zombie's; no one moved to eat her, full as we were with dead flesh. She squawked once and flew off. we regrouped on the p.o.o.p deck. Ros was lying on his side, picking his teeth with a piece of wood. He pulled out a black molar and threw it into the lake. A bird landed on the railing of the boat, some water creature with stilt legs and a long orange beak. She looked at us with eyes blank as a zombie's; no one moved to eat her, full as we were with dead flesh. She squawked once and flew off.

Judging from the sun and the mildness of the wind, it was early spring.

Joan made a noise like a drowning cat and took off her waterproof backpack. The top was ripped open, the zipper broken. She turned it upside down. Water, brine shrimp, and plants tumbled out, but no Isaac. In the pa.s.sion of our feeding, we'd forgotten him. Where was our red-eyed devil baby? Guts ran to Joan and pounded his fists on her squishy bosom.

"In the lake," Ros said. "But not dead. Never dead."

Ros was right. Isaac would wash up on sh.o.r.e one day, ravaged by the lake and its fish, perhaps little more than a skeleton, but ravenous nevertheless.

Brains, Part II: Isaac's Revenge.

We all looked rancid. Annie's cheek had a gaping hole ringed with brown blood and leeches; Ros was missing a few fetid fingers, probably eaten by fish; we all carried snails, weeds, sh.e.l.ls, and clams in our hair and pockets, clinging to our clothes and flesh. Joan stuck a finger in her ear and out popped a minnow. Guts picked the weeds out of her eyeball.

"What's the plan, captain?" Ros asked.

Wavelets slapped against the stern or the bow or the fore or the aft. The clouds looked like ducks or demons or Africa. In between them, a plane flew.

It had been a cold winter for zombies. If planes were flying.

I stood up and removed my water gear. Time for a checkup; everyone did the same. We formed a circle and examined each other. Guts's guts were gray worms; Ros's ribs poked through his chest and the tip of his p.e.n.i.s was gone; moss was growing on Annie's stomach. What looked like cottage cheese covered Joan's chest, and all of our hair was falling out.

I was afraid to look down at my own body, although it had betrayed me long ago. I nodded at Joan and mimed sewing, taping, healing.

"First aid kit," Ros said. "Down below." Joan saluted and turned on her heel.

It took hours to save us, from flies and their maggots, from fluvial decay and skeletonization. Saint Joan worked on each of us in turn. Guts helped her, sc.r.a.ping rot like barnacles, sewing up holes, and wrapping tape around softening bones. Guts found a paint set somewhere below and with it, Joan became an artist as well as a mortician, coloring our faces with pinks, peaches, and browns, reddening our lips. Preparing our bodies for viewing. Or for war.