I named them Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Here was the greatest tragedy of the twenty-first century. A viral outbreak and the military's b.u.mbling response. Something was rotten in the state of Iowa. Or were we already in Illinois?

And was Britney Spears a zombie? Was the Dalai Lama?

The hammer of the G.o.ds.

Next to me, Eve thrashed around, foaming with desire. It was all I could do to keep her tethered; it was all I could do to keep from joining her in mad brain-l.u.s.t.

Because just one bullet to the head and Jack Barnes would be dead.

"Don't even think about it," Rosencrantz (hereafter Ros) yelled as he rifle-b.u.t.ted a zombie poking his head through the bars.

"G.o.d, it stinks in there," Guildenstern (hereafter Guil) said.

"f.u.c.kin' stenches," Ros said, and stumbled forward, moaning and pretending to bite Guil's shoulder.

"Cut it out, dude. You could get yourself killed."

"No one would take me for one of them," Ros said, and stood at attention, drawing himself up to his full six feet and squaring his shoulders.

"I meant by one of them, not us."

"Any soldier who can't successfully combat a zombie is a r.e.t.a.r.d and deserves to be eaten."

Oh, how I wished I could bound forward like Bruce Willis, utter a snazzy one-liner, and devour the c.o.c.ky b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Clearly that hubristic line signaled his demise. Anyone familiar with the grammar of film-not to mention Greek and Elizabethan tragedies-knows that.

Unfortunately Rosencrantz was right: I couldn't fight him with my restricted motor skills. And that depressed me. The military ranked lower than absurdists and Everybody Loves Raymond Everybody Loves Raymond fans in my personal hierarchy of intelligence. fans in my personal hierarchy of intelligence.

"Maybe," Guil warned, "but don't let your guard down. Always be alert and above all else, be prepared."

"What is this, the Boy Scouts? These corpses are slower than your grandma and mine put together. Bottom line: The war is over and the good guys won. Disaster, world takeover, zombie apocalypse averted."

Eve leapt, exhibiting a strength and agility far beyond what a pregnant zombie should possess. She dragged me around the Tercel and toward the soldiers. I tried to hold her back, hooking my foot on the b.u.mper of the car, but the rope connecting us began to cut through my khakis and sink into my flesh. It could have slashed me in half-I was that decayed and soft-and then I'd be one of those pathetic crip zombies, dragging my torso around while my detached legs walked in aimless, undead circles.

Guil lifted his gun to his shoulder. "Die, zombie b.i.t.c.h!" he yelled, his finger on the trigger.

Ros hesitated. "Wait!" he said. "Check it out. That zomb.i.t.c.h is preggie and she's dragging another one by a rope. What the f.u.c.k!"

"Whoa," said Guil, lowering his gun.

"We better take these guys prisoner. Call the corpse catchers."

Guil took a walkie-talkie out and spoke into it. "Two of them," he said. "Male and female. Not cla.s.s-five aggressive, but not reduced to parts yet either. Moderate caution."

I struggled to hold Eve back. Her arms were outstretched, reaching for the soldiers, and she was pulling me with all her slight might. I fell to the ground, her ball and chain, dead weight.

"Uhhnnnnhh," she said.

Poor Eve, she'd really lost her looks since becoming a zombie. Her once-cute bangs were dirty and mottled with gore, and her eyes were filmed over, as haunting and evil as a vulture's. At times I wanted to gouge her eyes out; they reminded me of what I must look like.

I look like the rest of them.

As we rot, we become more alike. What was distinct and individual in life-a Marilyn Monroe mole, red hair, big b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Buddy Holly gla.s.ses, a penchant for making puns or wearing yellow suspenders-is erased and replaced with the shuffle, the moan, the torn clothes, the stink, the pallor, the dripping flesh, and the insatiable yearning. As we decay, we become one ent.i.ty. United we stand. Or sway, rather.

"We have to hold them for a few," Guil said. "Catch crew is about a quarter-mile up the line."

"Looks like the male's doing that for us."

"You think that's his wife and baby? And maybe he's trying to keep the family together?"

I nodded my head at Guil's partial truth. In life, Eve had been a stranger. I wouldn't have opened the door for her at the mall. In death, she was mine, and I felt as responsible for the child as if I'd sired it myself.

"Holy s.h.i.t!" Ros said. "Did that corpse just nod his head? Is he communicating with us?" He walked closer.

"Careful," Guil said.

"He's got her on a pretty short leash."

"It's not just her you gotta worry about."

Ros sidestepped the snapping Eve and approached where I lay on the shoulder, mashing my teeth into the white line, fighting for control. Because this was my opportunity to show the real me, the man beneath the animal. I watched Ros's combat boots approach. He knelt down.

He was young, not more than twenty, and he looked corn-fed, with freckles and a wide, flat face like a cow pie, only ruddy and pink. His hair was the color of dried corn stalks and his eyes were cornflower blue and bright.

Behind them was what I needed.

"What's up, fella?" he said, talking to me like I was a dog. "Can you hear me? Do you know what I'm saying? What are you doing with this here female and this rope?"

There was compa.s.sion in his voice. And the promise of help.

Stein, I tried to say, take me to Stein.

"Sheeeaiii!" is what came out.

"His eyes," Ros said.

"From here he looks pretty zombified," Guil said.

I rolled my head from side to side, shaking like an epileptic. I put my hand in my tweed jacket pocket and touched the papers there. My writing. Evidence of my cognition.

Ros was ten feet away. So close I could smell him. Everything in me sang: Brains for dinner. Brains for lunch. Brains for breakfast. Brains for brunch...

"I don't know," Ros said. "There might be someone home."

The zombies in the cage were watching; I could feel them cheering me on like binge-drinking fraternity brothers. We were tingling together, the ant phenomenon. My shoulder felt like a hard-on. A zombie orgy of sucking and smooching and licking and touching and brains and brains and brains and brains...

I withdrew my hand from my pocket, turning my back on salvation, and went for it. I wish I could say I attacked like a cat, even a fat old house cat, but we all know how zombies move. I crawled toward him, hand over hand on the pavement, baring my teeth.

"Looks like he's going for ya," Guil said.

Ros stood up. "Roger that. I'd hate to shoot this one, though. They'll want him for sure. Where are those f.u.c.kers?"

"I'm gonna slow him down," Guil said, "just in case."

"Roger that."

Guil tased me down the left side of my body, from shoulder to foot. My limbs twitched like a galvanized frog's. He turned the Taser on Eve.

"Watch the baby," Ros said. "They'll probably wanna check it out. I don't think we have too many pregnant ones, least not in this sector."

Guil nodded and zapped Eve's legs. She fell but continued pulling on the rope connecting us, single-minded in her pursuit.

Original sin. Eve did it again. She just can't resist temptation.

CHAPTER SIX

THE CORPSE CATCHERS came and the corpse catchers caught us. A rose is a rose is a rose. came and the corpse catchers caught us. A rose is a rose is a rose.

A team of ten trotted toward us, looking like extreme b.u.t.terfly catchers, wearing Kevlar, hazmat suits, and helmets, and carrying long poles, nets, and muzzles.

"Watch out for the female," Guil said to them. "She's more aggressive."

"Roger that."

I didn't resist or move. There wasn't much left at the site of my original bite. Strips of muscle clinging to the shoulder bone. I was only weeks away from being a dancing skeleton.

A catcher cut our rope.

"This is new," he said, looking at the frayed end.

"I'm guessing they did that in life," Ros said, "after they got bit, so they'd be together when they turned."

"Maybe, but he's more decomposed than she is."

I forced myself to my knees, then stood upright. I felt like Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. I am not an animal I am not an animal. I am a human being I am a human being. I...am...a...man I...am...a...man.

They covered Eve's head with their net and, using ten-foot poles, secured a muzzle over her. It looked medieval, like a knight's helmet but without the feathers and flourishes. They screwed the muzzle tightly around her neck with giant clamps. The woman in the iron mask, Eve clenched and unclenched her only hand. Her arms flailed as she groped blindly. I knew she was groping for flesh. Her corduroy maternity jumper-once as yellow as a lemon drop-was polka-dotted with dried blood.

The catchers led her to the cage; I had never loved her more.

"I am a conscious being," I longed to scream to the corpse catchers, to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to the world at large. "I love!"

"Uuhhhhnnnh," I moaned, and slouched toward them. Their net dropped over my head.

I stink, therefore I am.

CROUCHED IN THE corner of that stench-filled cattle cage, surrounded by rotters and moaners, our ontological state was clear to me: We were not men. Not any longer. But neither were we supernatural. Although we rose from the dead, we were not immortal. My pork shoulder attested to that. corner of that stench-filled cattle cage, surrounded by rotters and moaners, our ontological state was clear to me: We were not men. Not any longer. But neither were we supernatural. Although we rose from the dead, we were not immortal. My pork shoulder attested to that.

Shortly after my capture, I made an attempt to distinguish myself. I crept up to the bars and held a note out to the guards, shaking the paper when they walked by. They ignored me, treating me like the others. And when I looked at my brethren, I realized why.

I was one of them, a member of the crowd, a zombie, nothing more, nothing less, helpless under the boot of this army.

EVE'S EYES CONTINUED to plague me. Pale blue with a hideous veil over them, they were the eyes of Terri Schiavo or Karen Ann Quinlan. Open but unseeing. to plague me. Pale blue with a hideous veil over them, they were the eyes of Terri Schiavo or Karen Ann Quinlan. Open but unseeing.

Why are America's most famous vegetables women? A year ago, I might have a.n.a.lyzed the female pa.s.sivity and entrenched paternalism inherent in using women as national symbols for the chronic and persistent vegetative state. The "insertion" of the phallic feeding tube. The s.e.xual connotations of the term "pulling the plug." The group of male doctors "stimulating" the patient to see if she "responds." I would have published the article too, maybe turned it into a book.

Now I only wonder: Does a vegetable's brain taste like broccoli? The soldiers had new lyrics for that old standby:I don't know but I been told.f.u.c.kin' zombies ain't got no soul.

CORNFIELD AFTER PASTURE after cornfield after pasture after farm. Whenever a zombie appeared on the horizon, Ros and Guil took shots at him, her. It. If it was just one and they missed, they might let it go. If there were more, foot soldiers were dispatched while Ros and Guil stayed with us. after cornfield after pasture after farm. Whenever a zombie appeared on the horizon, Ros and Guil took shots at him, her. It. If it was just one and they missed, they might let it go. If there were more, foot soldiers were dispatched while Ros and Guil stayed with us.

Illinois was devoid of the living. The convoy stopped often, sometimes remaining immobile for over a day. We heard gunshots, bombs, mortars, tow trucks moving cars off the highway. When we began moving again, fresh zombies were sometimes thrown in with us. Prisoners of war, they arrived frightened, hungry, and beaten by the military.

I overheard the guards say we were headed north to be studied and experimented on. Poked and prodded. We were special zombies, they snorted, a select few saved from extermination. The military deemed us worthy of further investigation.

But I didn't believe that claptrap any more than they did. My companions were stupid, lumpen zombies, as proletarian as chimney sweeps, some with guts hanging out of their a.s.ses and holes blown through their chests, all with that vacant stare. Eve was banging her stump against her head like an autistic brat and my fellow prisoners were reaching their hands through the bars, desperate for brains. The moaning had reached that peculiar pitch: the key of need. If the guards didn't feed us soon, there would be a riot.

After a few days, they brought us a meal. We all knew the meat was coming. My shoulder felt it first. Zombies began walking in tight antic.i.p.atory circles. Everyone was pulsing and electric, our bite sites connected as if by a live wire. Positioning myself near Eve, I fingered her stump and looked into her eyes. I wanted to communicate with her, to exchange a meaningful glance and delight together in what was to come, like newlyweds glancing at each other on their wedding night. But Eve's eyes were doll's eyes. Marble and flat.

I detested them. Eyes like stones.

I'm glad I ate Lucy. I'd hate to see her dulled, reduced to an object, a thing. A rabid automaton. Like a Meg Ryan movie, zombiehood would have offended her.

The guards threw the meat in the middle of the pack. It was a mixture of pig and cow, of guts, brains, bones, and hooves, and it was still warm with thick, wet blood. Like a wolf, I pounced on it.

So did everyone else. We fought over those brains Jack Londonstyle: tooth and claw, club and fang. We fought like addicts over the final toot of c.o.ke. Piglets for teats. Holiday shoppers clawing each other for that last Tickle-Me Cabbage Patch Elmo Baby.

I had to win the brains to achieve alpha male status. I had to be king of the hill, at the top of the food chain. Because there is a hierarchy in zombiedom, however primitive: At the top is me, of course, standing alone, the smart zombie; next are the intact and the newly turned; slightly below them are those like Eve, older and a bit more decayed, but s.p.u.n.ky and mobile still. Then come those with major injuries, gaping holes and broken legs or necks. The ladder continues downward in a predictable fashion until it hits rock bottom: disembodied legs and arms, crawling around like Thing from The Addams Family The Addams Family.

At least they have no eyes to haunt me.

I pushed the weak aside; I pulled hard on Mr. Business...o...b..e's arm and it ripped right out of the socket, ruining his pinstripe suit. Score one for Professor Zombie.