"If you want to see the Tuesday special, I think there's still some buried in there somewhere," she'd say when he walked in every Friday evening for the blue plate. George would always shoot back, "If you want a mustache ride, all you gotta do is ask, darling." Good times.

The last day of George's life started off just about as good as a Sunday could get. It was a bright sunny morning and he had big plans for his one day off. His son and the not-so-grand grandson canceled their weekly visit and George would be lying if he said he was disappointed. Most days he enjoyed blessed few moments of quiet, and looked forward something fierce to being left alone. He had two Aleve tablets and a gla.s.s of grapefruit juice - f.u.c.k the government and their warning labels - for breakfast; and now, resting comfortably with his barkin' dogs on the ole' La-Z-y Boy, he was looking forward to indulging in his one, more or less, vice - an afternoon shooting n.a.z.is on the Xbox 360. He'd purchased it for when his grandson visited, but he had to admit he was addicted to the d.a.m.ned thing.

None of this interested a meteor the size of a crab apple. After zipping through most of the galaxy, the small mischievous messenger ended its journey by plummeting through the roof and lodging itself in the back of George's skull, snug as a bug in a rug. An autopsy of his remains later revealed that in addition to being a zombie, George was in the midst of stage IV pancreatic cancer. Much later the few scientists left speculated that his condition, combined with the unique radioactivity of the meteor, may or may not have had something to do with George's decision not to remain dead.

He remained dead in his La-Z-Boy for the rest of Sunday, undisturbed by grandchildren, neighbors, Jehovah's Witnesses or anything else, other than a radioactive crab apple from outer s.p.a.ce.

It wasn't until Monday morning that George Potts, the Adam of Zombies, woke up. He lurched out of his chair and shambled down the hallway, stopped at the front door and reached for the empty mail bag hanging on the coat rack. The strap caught on the hook and sent the rack clattering onto the tiled floor, making enough noise to wake the dead.

Mail bag in hand, Mr. Potts opened the door and went to work.

As always he started with Allison Green's house on Spruce Street. Allison was Comfort's town librarian. Her claim to local fame, however, was her green thumb. She was hands down the best gardener in the county. George made his way up the small walkway to the front door. Bright blue perennials flanked the cobblestone walkway and two well-trimmed b.u.t.terfly bushes framed the entrance, their long trumpet-shaped flowers lending an aristocratic air to the house.

Allison was already at work but the two boarders, a young writer and his wife who also lived there during the summer, were at home. George threw his body against the front door - the patented zombie knock. A few moments later the writer's pretty wife, armed with a dazzling smile, opened the door. Her smile hardly had time to falter before George fell upon her.

With the slow determination common to the undead and civil servants everywhere, George made his way up and down Spruce Street. Most did not come to their doors when he knocked. Only Jenny Hague, the retired school teacher, and little Sammy, the Fredrick's boy, were unfortunate enough to be home.

By the time Mr. Potts reached Elm Street after delivering Ellen's mail, seven people were dead - for the time being.

Elm Street was the end of the line for Mr. Potts. Gladys Jackson, the town gossip, happened to be looking out her window as she often did, and saw George digging into Molly Sharpe - little more than the town tramp. Poor Mr. Sharpe is barely out the door some days before Jake's pickup pulls around the corner - But not even the town pump deserved to be eaten by a mailman, and Gladys promptly called Sheriff Stevens.

George was quite full and his mustache not quite so white when Sheriff Stevens arrested him. Comfort's number one ma.s.s murderer didn't put up a fight. They put him in a cell with two vagrants and Jimmy, the town drunk who was sleeping off a bender.

Being the sole Jew in town, they buried poor Ellen - still dead for the time being - the next morning. The others were in the morgue when they turned; the morgue being the bas.e.m.e.nt of Morgan's Funeral Home. They killed Morgan, his wife and their infant son who through some small mercy remained dead. The writer's wife went home to get her husband and the librarian. The Fredrick's boy, the prodigal son, paid a visit to his dad who for one brief instant was insanely happy to see his son up and about.

Ted, the gravedigger had to work extra hard for his death. It was the middle of the night by the time he had dug up poor Ellen's coffin. Drunk and tired as he was, Ted was still horrified to hear feet kicking against the wood. He was not a brave man. Had he thought for a second that a half-starved zombie lay trapped in the wooden coffin, he'd have jumped out of the grave quicker than you could say "brains," and kept running until he was home with Jay Leno.

Of course this is not what he thought. He thought a terrible mistake had been made and that poor Ms. Rosenstein had been buried alive. So Ted got down into the grave with his trusty crow bar and started to pry the lid off. It wasn't difficult. It was a plain pine box held together by penny nails. With a little more effort, he popped the lid.

"Don't worry, Ms. Rosenstein," he gasped "Everything is going to be-"

Ellen sprung up like a nightmarish jack-in-the-box. Her once arthritic hands shot out and clawed into poor Ted's eyes. Ted screamed a high whistling scream that sounded like it came from a broken steam pipe.

Ellen, her fingers still hooked in his eyes, pulled his head down to her mouth. She covered his screaming mouth with her own in a parody of a lover's kiss. And she bit and she bit and she bit.

Ted did little more than mewl, having lost the use of most of his tongue and both lips. Even that stopped when Ellen pushed her fingers deeper into his eyes, searching for that special finger food that zombies, for lack of a better word, live for.

Even at this stage, most of the town refused to acknowledge that they were being turned into lunch meat. Mr. Potts had bitten the two vagrants and Jimmy, who never woke up. One of the vagrants tore Deputy Larkin's throat out when he opened the cell to see what was going on. The other had made its way out of the jail, and wound up at the Broadway Diner at a little past two a.m.

Annie, who was just about to end her shift, didn't notice anything wrong with the vagrant. He shambled instead of walked; he smelled like rancid meat, his clothes were stained and filthy. But that wasn't so unusual for the Broadway Diner at two a.m. Only after the man got fresh by tearing out a chunk of flesh from her thigh did Annie begin to suspect something was wrong.

And so it went. Of course the entire town did not turn into zombies. Many fled. Some who were killed remained dead. But when the grave dust settled, Comfort, Colorado was home to the first colony of undead, boasting a population of two hundred and thirty-eight undead ... and growing.

Chapter 7.

Yes, Dear Stanley fished out the sponge from the soapy tepid water, wincing as the submerged dishes clattered and clinked. Janet was stretched out on the couch in the family room. He could hear her snoring clear as day, even over Glenn Beck's weeping on the television. If there was a G.o.d, she'd be out for the night. And if there was a really good G.o.d, she'd never wake up.

If he were forced to use one word to describe their marriage, it would be long. And if he had to choose one word that terrified him, it would have to be longer. Stanley envied all those imaginary people who, when confronted with something that didn't work in their life, did something about it. He was thirty-nine years old, a stranger to hair products, and so hen-pecked over the last twelve years of marriage that he sometimes woke himself up in the dead of the night mumbling "yes, dear" in his sleep.

The mind wanders when one is alone in a quiet kitchen washing dishes. This was his me time, and even in misery he relished it. Things were tough lately. Work had slowed down and the company had cut back on overtime. Stanley could stand the cut in pay. It was being home before six that was killing him.

He was daydreaming about bachelor pads, the Playboy channel and White Castle dinners when disaster struck. A soapy blue water gla.s.s, purchased for ninety-nine cents at Costco, slipped from his fingers and shattered on the kitchen floor. Glenn Beck, still weeping over the destruction of America, and babbling some nonsense about the dead rising again and illegally crossing the borders, ignored it. Janet did not.

The snoring abruptly stopped and Janet launched into Jesus Christ mode.

"Jesus Christ!" she yelled. "What did you do now, you brainless idiot?"

Stanley closed his eyes and leaned against the kitchen counter.

"Nothing, honey. Don't worry about it. Just watch your show. I'll take care of it."

Janet must have muted the television because Glenn Beck went silent. Stanley no longer believed there was a G.o.d.

"If you didn't do ANYTHING, then what is there to take care of?"

Eyes still closed, Stanley heard Janet begin the labored process of getting up from the couch. Ignoring the broken gla.s.s for the moment, he put his hands back into the dishwater.

"Jeez and f.u.c.king crackers, are you so stupid," she wheezed. "So incompetent that I can't leave you alone to wash a few dishes without worrying about you wrecking the house? I can't just sit down for five minutes and watch my shows? What is wrong - no, wait. What is right with you, Stanley? I don't have time to stand around and listen to everything that's wrong with you, and that's the G.o.d's truth."

Stanley saw her in his mind's eye, rocking back and forth, building up momentum to propel herself off the couch and into the kitchen. Her cotton sky-blue warm-up pants, s.p.a.ckled with spaghetti sauce and chocolate, hung on to her hips for dear life.

"It's nothing, sweetheart. Just a drinking gla.s.s." In a moment of brilliant inspiration, he shouted out, "Don't come in until I clean up the gla.s.s. I don't want you to cut yourself."

Ignoring him - big surprise - Janet waded into the kitchen, guns blazing.

"Stupid is as stupid does, I guess." She had switched into injured, suffering spouse mode, knowing it was more effective in driving him crazy than yelling.

"I don't know what I did to deserve this. I wouldn't wish this life on Tonya Harding, that's the truth. I swear, if you were to get up one day and do something right, I'd just about have a heart attack and die from shock, Jesus forbid."

Stanley never knew what Janet was talking about when she got like this, but he hated it. Over the years she had accused him of crucifying her, p.i.s.sing in her lemonade - and don't think he hadn't considered doing just that on a number of occasions - and once declaring that he was a kind of cancer.

"I can see you're just tripping all over yourself to clean up this mess. Jesus on the cross had it easier than I do. I swear if the Lord had known you for ten minutes, he'd have kissed Judas on the mouth and planted a tree in Israel to thank the Jews for bleeding him."

Stanley kept his eyes closed. He knew if he saw her he'd never do it. His hands found the frying pan handle, and he listened for Janet to come a little closer. For once Janet did what he wanted.

Can you say Amen?

In his mind Stanley shouted with rage, turned and swung the frying pan into Janet's flapping maw. He heard the satisfying thwack as it connected, Janet falling to her knees, her big mouth spewing blood instead of insults. He saw himself standing over her, screaming at her, swinging the pan over and over again - shutting her up forever.

"Is that my Costco drinking gla.s.s on the floor?" Janet shrieked. "I just ..."

Stanley let out a roar, but it came out as a high pitched squeal. He turned, eyes squeezed shut as he swung as hard as he could. The handle of the heavy frying pan, slick with soapy water, flew out of his hand and smacked Janet right in the middle of her fleshy forehead.

Big as she was, she spun around with the grace of a ballet dancer and collapsed to the floor.

Stanley stood there for a long time in shock. Not by what he had done but rather by the strange sensation of living with a silent Janet. Then he laughed out loud - something that was verboten until tonight.

"I guess maybe there is a G.o.d after all."

When Janet didn't stop him he laughed harder.

Stanley was not a strong man. But tonight he had the strength of the righteous.

And he used his righteous strength to drag Janet's heavy body into the garage. He had intended to roll her up in a rug, but righteous strength went only so far these days and he couldn't handle the extra weight.

He pulled her across the kitchen and into the adjoining mud room, where they kept coats and boots. There was a half step between the two rooms and Janet's head made a soft, sickening thud as he dragged her over it. But Janet's capacity for patience had increased dramatically in the last hour, and little things like broken gla.s.s and smacking her head against the floor didn't bother her any more.

His plan was to put her body in the trunk of the Cadillac, drive out into the Pine Barrens - like he had seen on that Soprano's episode - set the car on fire and bury the license plates somewhere in the woods. It would be a long walk to somewhere he could call a car service, but nothing a righteous man such as himself couldn't handle.

The garage was attached to the house and off of the mud room - a good piece of luck as Stanley didn't have to worry about being seen. He grabbed the car keys off the hook by the door and paused to look in the kitchen. A light smear of blood cut a trail across the white floor. He'd have to do something about that before he left. Just in case.

"First things first," he muttered. He put the car keys in his mouth, and with both hands he grabbed Janet's feet.

Ten minutes later she was in the trunk. Stanley was sweating buckets and panting like La.s.sie at Rin Tin Tin's bachelor party. He dropped the keys from his mouth and they landed somewhere in the vast territory of Janet's bosom. He took a few moments to catch his breath. It felt like hours had pa.s.sed, but his watch insisted it was only about forty minutes.

"Okay. Okay."

He was going over the plan in his head one last time when the phone rang. Should he answer it or let it go to voice mail? Ideas about establishing an alibi tickled the back of his mind, but in the end he didn't trust himself to have a telephone conversation with anyone right now. He'd been proactive enough for one evening. He let the phone ring.

The answering machine picked up, but it was in the TV room and he couldn't hear who was speaking or what they were saying. He debated going inside and playing the message, but couldn't imagine that it could matter at this point.

He shut the trunk and went back into the kitchen to clean up.

It took him longer to straighten up than he thought it would, and his back ached something awful by the time he was done.

The strength of the righteous is well and good, but a few Advil might be a good idea.

He got the pills from the medicine cabinet and downed them with a diet c.o.ke from the fridge.

Tired and in no hurry to start the drive to south Jersey, he went to the TV room and sat on the couch. As his a.s.s met cushion he exhaled with that special mixture of pleasure and relief of the middle-aged. The answering machine sat on the end table, the blinking red light refusing to be ignored. He reached over and hit play, immediately regretting it. The message was from Janet's friend, Edith. Edith wasn't as mean or loud as Janet, but she was a close second.

"Hiya hon. Just got the new mahjong card. I'll make a copy and walk it over. Don't forget - " A loud thud interrupted her. "What the h.e.l.l? - hold on a second."

Stanley did not hold on a second. Ignoring the machine he turned and looked around the room, searching for what, he didn't know. Ignoring the aches and pains he stood up.

"Time to go," he said to the room. "Job's still half done."

Back in the garage he got into the car and fished for his keys. Except his keys weren't there. He'd put them right in the pa.s.senger seat, hadn't he?

No. He hadn't. The keys, he recalled, were resting somewhere on the great bosom of Janet. Stanley didn't panic. Even when Janet started banging against the trunk, he didn't panic.

Laughing so hard that tears started streaming down his face, he got out of the car and walked to the back of the trunk. He could hardly breathe.

Janet, still banging away, made Stanley laugh even harder. He went to the corner of the garage where the lawnmower was kept. Next to it was a two-gallon can with about half a gallon of gasoline in it. He took the canister and made the short journey back to the trunk, where Janet had added a little moaning to her thumping routine.

Someone knocked against the garage door. Probably Edith, with mahjong card in hand. This too he found hysterical and redoubled his laughter. Trying his best to choke back the giggles, he started spilling gasoline over the car. A lot of it sloshed onto his pants, but that hardly mattered now.

"You know," he wheezed between laughs, "you were right, Janet."

He took out a match book and struck a light.

"I can't do anything right."

Chapter 8.

The Critic Special Agent Christopher Jenkins took the still smoking cigarette that he was holding in the corner of his mouth and then he put it out against his foot, leaning against the old and beat-up coffee machine. He grabbed the suspect who was sitting slumped in a chair in the middle of the room by his coat and shook him very roughly, making the suspect's eyes jiggle in his head.

"Tell me again, sc.u.mbag."

"I already told you earlier that I have already told you everything that I know," the suspect lied. "Like I said, the shipment is coming by boat sometime tomorrow night and Mr. X is supposed to be there with the cash, the guns and some people to help move the stuff. I was going to be one of the people who helped move the stuff. That's all I know."

Jenkins took another pull on his still smoking cigarette and frowned in concentration.

The suspect was crying. Special Agent Christopher Jenkins knew the suspect was probably telling the truth. But he needed more information, so he shook the suspect even harder.

"How much of the s.h.i.t are they bringing in? Tell me!"

Osborne leaned back in his chair and adjusted his trousers. He was sporting a nice little pup tent. As far as he was concerned, stories this bad were better than hardcore p.o.r.n. This one wasn't as deliciously insipid as the latest Twilight book, but it would do.

He intended to go straight to his blog, writeorwrong.com, and begin shredding while the bad taste in his mouth was still fresh. But his stiffy had other ideas. This piece wasn't published of course. Random House and the like had enough sense to stay away from drivel of this sort. But even for a high school writing a.s.signment, it was spectacularly bad.

It was no use. He was too worked up now to sit still. He needed a little something to take the edge off, and that little something was sleeping in the next room.

He got up from his desk, and like every man other than Al Gore let his erection lead the way. With a quick detour to the bathroom for a splash of Listermint and a courtesy wipe of his a.s.s, he gave himself a once over in the mirror. Hmm. For a critic, he was surprisingly handsome. Short dark hair, a pimple free complexion and light blue eyes. His teeth were white and even. There was nothing obviously repulsive about him.

Kelly's toothbrush had fallen into the sink. With a frown he returned it to its rightful place. She was always doing things like that. He sighed then headed to the bedroom.

Kelly, already sleeping, lay before him like a Caligula buffet. She wore a long white T-shirt that ended just above her knees. Osborne frowned again and pulled back a few strands of hair that had fallen over her face. She was always letting her hair get loose, even though she knew it drove him to distraction sometimes.