in force, cicadas were buzzing like a sawmill in the heat, and Jack was sweating. There was nothing to match the muggy heat of Miami; it laid on you like a large dog with hot sticky breath. Jack tried not to concentrate on his discomfort. The air was still, compounding the heat. It seemed even the zombies were driven into a torpor from it, as he didn’t see one until he got past the main commercial area of Miracle Mile. There he saw a girl limping aimlessly along the sidewalk, looking for all the world like any morose teenage girl. He gave her a wide berth, and continued on his way. Eventually he made it all the way to Vizcaya without any trouble. It was almost as if the zombies had migrated, gone north for the summer.
He began searching the area, going building by building. There were three possibilities: Jill’s husband was dead, he was a zombie, or he was alive and well. If he were dead, there was a chance Jack would never know, depending on how mutilated his corpse was. Finding him a zombie would be the easiest outcome. Jack knew how to deal with that, and zombies were predictable. He wondered what would happen if Mike were alive. Was he a rival for his mate, should he be eliminated? No, that was ridiculous; Jack would re-unite husband and wife, that’s all – no monkey business, that wasn’t his way. Living alone with disappointment, well, that was what his life was like.
Jack yelled occasionally, in case Mike could hear him. He came across bones, sometimes a bit more than bones, several times and stopped to inspect them. It was slow going, and Jack was being methodical. He didn’t want to spend the night, but if he wasn’t successful quickly, he planned to stay rather than head back. He’d find a roof to make a bivouac. He couldn’t know what had caused the zombies to clear out, or when they would come back, but he had no expectation that the trip back would be as easy as the one out had been.
Eventually, Jill’s husband turned up accidentally, while Jack was looking for some vitamins. She had requested them, and although she hadn’t mentioned it, he knew she was pregnant. It wasn’t showing much, but enough that he suspected, and then she kept touching her stomach. So he went into a Walgreens looking for pregnancy vitamins and as he was walking up the isle looking for them he saw a man crouching in the back, hidden behind the end of an isle. He walked back past the Dr. Scholl’s and came around the corner fast, raising the iron bar as he did. The man lifted an arm to shield his head, and that was when Jack realized that it wasn’t a zombie. Jack stood still, every muscle tense, knowing this had to be Mike.
“Who are you?” asked the man. His voice was clear and, though his eyes looked red and tired, he seemed very calm. Jack kept his eyes averted, avoiding looking at the catastrophic leg wounds on the man. The damage didn’t seem too bad from the waist up. Mike was leaning back against the end-cap where various types of hearing-aid batteries quivered above his head, smoking a cigarette, tapping the ash into a little mound beside him, opened cartons and loose packs splayed around the floor on the other side.
“My name’s Jack,” replied Jack. “Are you okay?”
The man laughed. “Oh yeah,” he said, running his free hand back through his hair, “Just peachy. I can’t move, but I’m fine. I have everything a man could need. Cigs and… well, now there’s just the cigs.” Jack looked down now at the man’s legs and saw that they were chewed badly, right down to the bone, and completely unusable. He winced inwardly, but hoped he had controlled it enough for it not to show. This man was dead, and the worst kind of dead. He would turn into one of them.
“You look like you had a run in with some of our neighbors …”
“Yeah. Hell, I should have known better, but I thought I was clever. I was getting supplies and a bunch of them trapped me in here. I almost got away, but had to pull myself back in and only made it partway. Up to the waist – can you tell? At least I can crawl pretty well.”
Jack glanced around at the store. Blood trails marked the floor where this man had dragged himself up to the cigarettes and over to the food. What was he doing here this way, facing the back? Just behind where the man lay, Jack saw the pregnancy vitamins. He went and grabbed a couple of bottles, putting them in his pants pockets on either side.
“Hey, you got a girl too? That’s great. Mine’s around here somewhere. We kind of got separated.” The man looked up at Jack with eyes that knew everything, that didn’t need telling, but Jack told him anyway.
“It’s your wife Jill,” he said. He tapped his pocket and the vitamins rattled. “Your baby.”
“Jill? Is she here with you?” Jack shook his head. The man took a final drag from the cigarette, squinted from the smoke, and stubbed it out amid what appeared to be several hundred other butts. “I should hope not. This is no place for a lady. And I’m in no condition to be seen.”
“I came to find you, and bring you back to her,” said Jack.
“What the hell for?” said Mike. “I’m no good. I know what’s next for me. Hell, I’m not even going to be a decent zombie – with no legs I’ll crawl around using my hands like a real monster. Looked down upon even by my fellow zombies.” Smiling bitterly, the man looked over at the cigarette packs crowded around him. “I thought I was going to smoke all these. I don’t even smoke, you know. I just started – don’t tell Jill. I wanted to do something bad for me, so I decided to chain-smoke. I don’t like the menthol though, and that’s about all I have left.” He looked up at Jack. “I only have menthol left. So nothing’s good anymore. Not even cigarettes,” he said to Jack pointedly. “I would like to go now. You look like a mentally tough guy. Would you take care of it for me?”
“You want me to do it?” asked Jack. He felt this was still a man, still someone who could decide his own fate. Jack respected him. He was facing death with strength. Jill seemed more special for being special to him.
“Yes,” the man said. “Take care of me. And take care of Jill, okay?”
“I will,” said Jack, taking out his gun, and pointing it at the man’s forehead. “I’m sorry it has to be like this.” With a single loud blast, Jack finished the job. He looked around the place for a means to carry Mike home, and found a camping cot and some rope. He lashed Mike onto the cot as if it was a stretcher, head up, what was left of feet down, grabbed the upper end on both sides like handles, and walked out, headed back to the tree house, the vitamins in his pockets rattling like maracas with every step.
He only stopped at one store on the way back, as a response to inspiration.
Carroll’s. It was a jewelry store.
The sun was setting as he arrived back at the tree house. For once, it hadn’t rained that afternoon and the sun had shone down with unrelenting heat – Jack’s shirt was soaked through with sweat. As he caught sight of his little treehouse, he saw his father still lying out in the yard where he had left him yesterday. There wasn’t any swelling, which was how it went with zombies bodies that have already been dead a while. The flies didn’t even seem interested. He left Mike a little ways back, in a patch of weeds away from the road and out of sight, but nearby.
Jack felt sorry for Jill, trapped in such an ugly world, and for himself for having to tell her about it. How could it work out, the two of them? As he came back out from his chore and walked toward the tree house, he examined it objectively and saw that it was woefully inadequate for their needs. Especially with a baby. Then the solution hit him as he spotted the light from the setting sun glinting off a tower poking above the trees off in the distance. He went to the ladder and ascended.
“Hi,” said Jill, smiling as she looked up from where she sat with an old magazine. She had been busy, and the place looked tidier than it had ever been, and organized differently, nicer. She had grouped the sparse furniture better and made it feel more comfortable. But even with that, he could see the sagging springs, the dirty fabric, which had been impossible for her to cleanse completely.
“Hi,” he said. “I brought you these.” He pulled the two bottles from his pockets and gave them to her.
“Pregnancy vitamins!” She frowned. “You knew I was pregnant?”
/> “I guessed. You seem concerned about your health, more than you would for just yourself, if you know what I mean. And you touch your belly.”
“You’re pretty smart. But you were gone a long time for just these …”
Jack went over and looked at the kitchen. She had made a stew, and when he lifted the lid, it smelled better than anything he had ever made. She hadn’t stayed indoors, she had gone and collected vegetables from his garden, had made a proper soup, and seasoned it well. It smelled delicious. She had tried so hard to welcome him back, and he brought such bad news. He just came out with it.
“I found your husband. He was dying, but I got to talk to him some first, before he died.” She didn’t react, other than to sit very still. “That’s why I went out today. To find him for you. I did. He was a good person. I liked him.”
She had had the magazine open in front of her, but closed it now and rested her hands on it. Her eyes closed and then opened slowly, wetter than before. He felt sad for her.
“He wasn’t a zombie, then?”
“No, he had been attacked though, and he was badly injured. Bitten.”
“Was he in pain?” she asked.
Jack thought about this, and realized that he hadn’t seemed to be. Perhaps he had