"Yeah," Bobby Z agrees. "Maybe you can s.h.i.t in his lunchbox and give him a heart attack."

"Wait," Bobby B laughs. "Did you just say 'hard' attack?"

"No," says Bobby Z, standing up too, trying to be the one to signal our break is over. "You f.u.c.kin' heard me."

"Sorry. Just trying to figure out what a 'hard attack' is and how I can make sure you don't give me one, f.a.ggot," Bobby B says, smile slipping as Sour Towel Zombie steps between them.

I don't even know whose turn it is to shove our poor Sour Towel into the bush when he gets close enough, but, for some reason, I jump on the opportunity. I push him so hard, he almost flips over twice. I don't even wait for a Bobby to get on all fours behind him, the usual drill, and I can tell both of them are a little disappointed. This is very uncharacteristic of me, and I cough nervously to let everyone know it. No one says anything, even though they've done their share of flipping that kid turtle-like into that bush at least once apiece. But the worst is when Cigarette Zombie quietly helps a dour Sour Towel Zombie out of the broken branches and back to his feet.

Then we all crack some knuckles and put on our game faces and start lumbering back toward the house. I'm the last one standing up straight as I think about what I did and who I did it for.

Someone is sick, coughing instead of moaning. Coughing for real. And Sour Towel Zombie is telling anyone who will listen about the movie Gates of h.e.l.l and how that poor actress had to swallow still-warm sheep entrails for the effect of vomiting up her entire intestinal tract. Cigarette Zombie stops coughing, then lights another cigarette off the orange nub of her last one before she drops it.

"Now that's a chain smoker," Sour Towel Zombie laughs. "When you light one off one and they're both yours? Time to quit! And why don't you ever flick 'em for dramatic effect?"

I leave them crouched down next to the porch and navigate the gas meters and gutters. It's my turn on recon and psychological warfare. I scratch around the aluminum siding until I find a good window to peek inside. I can see the good bed, the made bed, the bed with the big, pink, fluffy comforter and someone's shiny, new suitcase dead center in the middle of it. Then two Camels appear, the women, arms flailing away and gesturing to the bed, both apparently explaining why it should be hers. I snicker. They must have already located the damp mattress in the corner of the unfinished family room (or "Teta.n.u.sville," as Mags calls it. "Or Spiderville to the locals.") One of the Camels eventually leaves, defeated, and the other walks to the bathroom and clicks on the light over the mirror. She checks the lines of her face, then places a sickly green Tupperware bowl of something on the edge of the tub to soak. I blink a few extra times as I realize what it is. Then the other Camel storms back in, still yelling and I take off. When I come back down to the Joshua Bush, everyone is shuffling in a circle, killing time between attacks, and Cigarette and Sour Towel Zombie are still arguing.

"I've seen that movie!" Cigarette Zombie almost yells. "There's way worse."

"Like what exactly?"

"Like Beyond Re-Animator, zombie s.c.h.l.o.n.g vs. rat during the end credits. Or even like your precious Braindead, uh, I mean, Dead Alive, where the dude's r.e.c.t.u.m flops out and then runs amok around the house. h.e.l.l, it even tries to groom itself in a mirror at one point, like comb its head with little bladders."

"Yeah, that scene's okay," Sour Towel Zombie admits. "But everything in that movie is overshadowed by the Greatest Moment Of All Time."

"Which is?"

"Sigh. I shouldn't even have to say it. Do I have to say it? I won't. Okay, I will. The lawnmower scene, f.u.c.kers. If my own death came at that moment, I would be okay with that."

"Next time just sigh instead of saying the word, douche bag."

I try to get their attention by shuffling the wrong way against the flow of traffic.

They dodge me easily, mostly keeping game faces glued. Not like the summer when there was a hornets nest under the porch, angrily activated every time more than two limp-wristed feet hit the steps, an extra obstacle that made us dance around in a seriously comic, quite un-undead-like fashion. We almost changed our name to the Zee Bee & Bee & Bee & Bee & Bee. It took at least three smoke bombs to get rid of it for good, but every so often a sting will still surprise a thin-skinned zombie into breaking character with a high-stepping wince at the most serious of times.

"Hey, guys?" I whisper. "There's a suitcase on a bed now."

"Good," says Bobby B. "Are they fighting over it in a beautiful pa.s.sive-aggressive way?"

"No, more like actually fighting."

"Sweet. What are the men up to? Have they found the key to the closet yet?"

"No, just the nails, obviously. But they may have run out already. There's no more hammering."

"Great. Good job," Bobby Z says sarcastically as he grabs my shoulders. "Now turn around. You're going the wrong way, f.u.c.knuts."

"But, uh, I did notice a couple things that were kind of weird ..."

"Yeah, you already said that. Something about a paper towel. So the Camel washes his hands too much. It's just habit."

"No, it's the female. One of them has a pair of b.l.o.o.d.y underwear soaking in the tub."

Everyone stops shuffling.

"And?" Bobby Z asks.

"What do you mean 'and'?" about three zombies say at the same time.

"So, what, you think she'll be more on edge, more likely to defend her personal s.p.a.ce?" Bobby B wonders.

"No." I speak slow like a child, seeing that some of them don't know what I'm getting at or are just pretending to ignore it. "What I'm saying is that she must still be ..."

Bobby Z shoves me over before I can finish.

"Dude, don't f.u.c.k this up. It's the only job I've ever liked."

"Hey, that reminds me!" Bobby B laughs. "What do you call a zombie melting in your bathtub?"

"What?"

"Duane! Get it?"

Bobby Z smiles a big blue smile and starts to stumble around next to Cigarette Zombie so he can put his arm around her. I start to grit the last of my teeth. I've never seen a season with so many love triangles, dead, undead, or otherwise.

Bobby B keeps telling jokes, trying to break the tension with some oldies but goodies.

"What do you call a zombie with no arms and no legs?"

"Matt."

"What do you call that same zombie in the pool?"

"Bob."

"What do you call that same zombie hanging on a meat hook?"

"Chuck!" Bobby Z is trying hard to answer them all before he finished the set-up.

"Or it could be 'Art!'" Baseball Zombie interrupts it. "That works, too."

"Shut the f.u.c.k up and watch the house." Bobby Z has his arm around Baseball Zombie's shoulders instead. "Go on."

"What do you call a zombie stuck under your car?"

"Jack. Go faster."

"What do you call a zombie head stuck in your mailbox?"

"Bill."

"What do you call a zombie with one leg?"

"Eileen. Come on, don't you have any new ones?"

"What do you call a zombie with no arms or legs in a pile of leaves?"

"Russell."

"What do you call a zombie with no feet?"

"Neil."

"What do you call a zombie in the middle of a baseball field?"

We know them all backwards and forward, but even Baseball Zombie isn't fast enough for that one.

"Second base."

"I like it better when Davey Jones does them," says Cigarette Zombie. "He's always so serious about it."

She's right. He used to fire them off as a sort of calisthenics before the game, something to get our minds right, get us down to that "just ... one ... thing" he was always babbling about. Rumor had it that Davey tried to be one of us at first, back when it all started. Supposedly he would attack the house all by himself. And he was a miserable failure. Refunds were demanded. But that didn't stop us from calling him "The O.G.Z." sometimes to f.u.c.k with him.

It's quiet for a while, until Bobby B starts cracking knuckles for another siege. I point to the Camels' car at the bottom of the hill, still trying to initiate my discussion.

"Look at that. What kind of vanity plate says MARCH-7?"

"Is that today? How tempting would it be to f.u.c.k with that car if that was today?"

"Did anything important happen on that day? I mean, besides ..."

"We all know what happened on that day."

"It's telling us what to do." Bobby Z shoves me again and suddenly we are all running toward the house. "It says 'get moving.' That's a f.u.c.king order, soldier."

Ironically, it's hard to be a good zombie in Pittsburgh with all the hills. Much too tempting to run. Cigarette Zombie is from here originally, and she says she smokes so much because the coughing reminds her of home, mostly the buildings still stained black from the dead factories.

One afternoon when we were the first two to get to work, she swore to me that there was a little bit of Steeltown in all of us now, then she turned and spit a little splash of black onto a nearby b.u.t.terfly.

It was beautiful.

"And one more thing!" Bobby Z yells out, running harder to get in front of Bobby B. "No one says that word again tonight! We're over the limit! Now march!"

Sour Towel Zombie catches up with him thirteen steps before the porch.

"You know, I thought I was watching a zombie movie the other night, but it just turned out to be that one about the lame-a.s.s rapper getting shot nine times. But he's got to be a zombie, right? Ain't everybody?"

"f.u.c.k him," Bobby B answers him before Bobby Z can get mad about the word. "That guy's a p.u.s.s.y. All rappers get shot. Doesn't mean s.h.i.t. Bullet holes? It takes more than that to prove you're a tough guy. You can't even see a bullet hole. You usually just have to take their word for it, especially when they tattoo over them. Now, if he'd been shot with nine arrows, that would be a different story. That would be impressive. Can you imagine him stumbling past the DJ, crashing through the turntable at the party, nine arrows sticking out of his body? Maybe one in his face? Now that's tough."

The house is about five feet away, and we can hear the hammers again. They can probably hear us, too, and we still aren't in character. Davey Jones would flip out.

"Less like a rapper," I offer, "and more like the cowboy in the western who stumbles into the camp fire after an ambush ..."

That's when Bobby Z punches me in the mouth, and I feel two of my bottom teeth tip a little toward my tongue. I jab him in the throat before I can talk myself out of it, and we both tumble into the porch. The other zombies dogpile on us to pull us apart just as Davey Jones' furious mug appears from behind a cracked flap of wood in the door.

"What the h.e.l.l?" he barks. "Knock that s.h.i.t off! And why the f.u.c.k were you guys running? Real zombies don't run! Wrong movie, a.s.sholes!"

Sour Towel Zombie steps up behind me and sarcastically flexes where his bicep would have been, an ironic tattoo of the character Tattoo from "Fantasy Island" renting the s.p.a.ce instead.

But Davey Jones is right. We've always chosen to emulate the shambling, drunken interpretations of the walking dead and not subscribe to the latest, more popular, run-amok versions in, for example, 28 Days, Weeks, and Months Later and the latest Dawn of the Dead remake. We usually followed this code religiously, but sometimes we had to remind a few extra-excitable staff, like our very first, now deceased, Cowboy Zombie, not to howl "Brains!", a war cry first heard in Return of the Living Dead. It was almost irresistible sometimes, and mostly we successfully fought the urge. Mostly.

The angry face of our boss is gone before we can respond. I stand up, wiggle my tooth, wipe my nose, and turn to find a Bobby scratching at the door, already forgetting what he did to me. I join him reluctantly.

Yes, "no running" was an old rule, but a necessary one. First, there's the indisputable fact that when it's dark, trees are a real danger. Like Sour Towel Zombie always said, "Run too fast through the trees and you can lose your virginity" (just like the poor girl who was spread-eagled and penetrated by a stop-motion spruce in Evil Dead), but the biggest problem was it also got people too excited about crashing into that house by the time they got to it. Tempers were always too short when people moved too fast. That's why the walking dead could boast such a s...o...b..ll of new memberships every weekend the world ended.

I scratch harder even though it's all wood instead of windows now, and at least three splinters slip under my fingernails. I count each one as it goes in and feel nothing.

Most of the game never changes.

The hammer is under the sink. They usually don't find it right away. And when the windows run out of gla.s.s from our fists, there's a stack of replacement wooden doors (an interrupted renovation) upstairs for them to find. And under the other sink, of course, the bucket of nails. But to get the power going, they have to use the car battery in the cupboard. And when the TV's up and running, they'll see our eight-hour videotape of fake news broadcasts (a VCR hides in the wall). First is the newscaster in denial, expertly played by my father. Then comes the interview with the scientist, Mags' uncle Mike actually. Finally, my sister interrupts the broadcast with her Casio keyboard rendition of an extra creepy Emergency Broadcast Signal. She cried when I said she couldn't do the theme for the news, too. "Sometimes too much music ruins a movie," I said.

Once the real arguing starts in the house, there are two choices. Bas.e.m.e.nt or roof. Okay, three, actually. There's always that mysterious locked door and whatever's rustling inside. One of our Plants, usually Mags, will argue hard for the bas.e.m.e.nt.

But the bas.e.m.e.nt is doom. The bas.e.m.e.nt has always been doom, and not just when we were scared of the dark as kids. And if the couple chooses the bas.e.m.e.nt, come morning, everyone in the house will greet them at the door all zombied up with a resounding, "You lose!"

But they should know this. Remember, Day of the Dead was just one big bas.e.m.e.nt. That movie should have taught them all they needed to know. Wait, maybe that was Alien 3. Which movie was it where someone said, "But this whole place is a bas.e.m.e.nt"? Sour Towel Zombie tried to argue that this line was from the movie Dog Soldiers when the girl reveals to the platoon stranded in the farmhouse that the monsters were never in the barn out back, but simply hiding in the bas.e.m.e.nt the whole time.

"They were always here," she explains as her foster family of werewolves slowly rises up behind her. "I just unlocked the door, and it's that time of the month."

Hearing this theory, Davey Jones grabbed Sour Towel Zombie by his damp, wrinkled collar, the maddest we'd seen him up till then, which was no joke. Must have had something to do with that dog we had. Always the dog.

"You're not werewolves, f.u.c.kface," he spat. "You can never change back."

But before those bas.e.m.e.nt debates begin, there's the TV. One time, I saw a scowling newlywed click past our fake news and click on the real news instead. Just for a second, right before a Plant slapped his hand away, but long enough to catch the real news anchor sniffling: "They're calling it the end of ..."

You could see the question in his eyes. The end of what? The end of something, anything. That's all he needed to know.

Then the show was back on my dad in the anchor seat, reading his script in his best solemn smirk, but accidentally correcting the real news he also couldn't help but sneakily watch off-camera, "Actually, they're calling it Judgment Day, not to be confused with Judgment Night, a fine film and cautionary tale about a siege on a mobile home ..."

That particular night, I slumped down by the gas meter to giggle through our break, and one of the dead, I thought it was Cowboy Zombie at the time (although later he denied the entire conversation), plopped down wearily next to me. He was wearing the Pittsburgh Steelers football helmet, which was crushing his ten-gallon hat (a direct violation of the "one characteristic" rule) that shadowed his face more than usual. I noticed he had one of his shoes off and a b.l.o.o.d.y fish hook stuck in the ball of his foot.

He wiggled it free and held it up in the moonlight.

"Can you imagine what this must look like to one of them?" he asked me in a voice unfamiliar. "That wiggling bait with the line stretching up to infinity, catching the sun every so often like a lightning bolt. If you were swimming by, you would know something was wrong, but there is just no way you could resist taking a bite."