Dead Sea

    Eventually, I got far enough away from the fires to drop my washcloth. The smoke cleared and visibility improved. I immediately wished that it hadn't. More wrecked and abandoned automobiles choked the street and the bloodstained pavement was littered with body parts: severed heads, organs, and scraps of human meat. I recognized one of the heads. It was the guy who'd owned the liquor store around the corner. He was still functioning, despite the fact that he no longer had a body. His eyes focused on me, and his pale tongue slid across his dry, cracked lips. I tried kicking him across the street, just like Alan had done earlier that night, but his teeth clamped down on the toe of my boot. He didn't break the leather, but held firm just the same. I hopped around on one foot, trying to shake him off. His head came loose and soared through the air, shattering a storefront window. His teeth lay scattered on the pavement. They crunched beneath my heels as I walked on. It made me long for the days when the only thing littering the sidewalks in my hood was empty crack vials.

    I passed by a Catholic church-a gothic-looking building with a cross-topped steeple and bell. Several of the stained glass windows were broken and neon red spray paint covered the front doors. The graffiti said god is dead. Across the street was a pawn shop. Our neighborhood had plenty of pawn shops and liquor stores and check cashing places, but not many banks or factories. In truth, I was happy to see the liquor stores burn. They were blight. Cautiously, I peeked inside the pawn shop, hoping there were some weapons left, but the looters had picked it clean. The only things left were a few musical instruments, an old video game system, and a severed hand lying on the floor. Mopping sweat from my forehead, I continued along past a newsstand, another liquor store, and a row of houses. A bloodstained flyer advertising the Fourth Annual East Baltimore Black Singles Weekend fluttered by in the hot breeze. The rear end of a car stuck out of a barber shop. A pizza joint stood open to the elements, ransacked of everything, even the tables and fixtures. My stomach rumbled. Despite everything, despite the danger and the stench in the air and the body parts in the streets, I was hungry.

    Shuffling footsteps caught my attention, followed by a low moan. Then came the stench. I ducked into a doorway and waited. Three zombies stumbled out of an alley. I could smell the rot wafting off of them, even from the other side of the street. I held my breath, waiting for them to pass and praying they wouldn't see me. My prayer went unanswered. The graffiti on the church doors had been right. God was dead now. Just like everyone else. God was a zombie and these were his children.

    He must have smiled upon them.

    They saw me, lurched toward the doorway, and I wondered how it was possible that dead men could still drool.

    The first corpse was in bad shape: both his arms were missing, an ear hung by a thread of cartilage, and one empty eye socket festered with maggots. His face was expressionless. He showed no emotion, just blank hunger. His two companions followed close behind him; a teenage girl who barely looked dead, and a middle-aged man whose wrists were cut downward rather than across. He'd wanted to make sure he did it right. Too bad it hadn't kept him from coming back. The bite mark on his forearm, right in the middle of the cut, was proof enough of that. I wondered if he'd been bitten first and committed suicide in some effort to stop the infection or had cut himself before the zombie attack. It didn't matter. Either way, he was back now. Death was not the end.

    "Damn, you guys stink."

    If they understood me, they gave no indication. I tried to laugh, but my mouth was dry. It sounded more like a frightened whimper.

    They were slow and stupid enough that I could easily get away from them. Just slip out from the doorway and run around them, making sure to keep a wide berth. But before I could do that, more creatures wandered into the street. None of them carried weapons or showed the slightest bit of cunning or tactical ability. If they had, I'd have been dead. One clutched a cell phone in its hand. When I took a closer look, I realized its arm had been burned somehow, and the phone had melded with its skin. Melted flesh stuck to the plastic like taffy left out in the sun.