I, Zombie

This was what a death sentence felt like, Jennifer realized. She was walking down a prison aisle, cages on both sides of her, like Central Park Zoo. She was walking to her death, unable to control her legs, terrified and resigned. This was what it felt like.

The woman who had been hit and spun around had a new jagged wound to live with. She straightened herself and trudged forward with the rest. Another hit, another excellent shot, Jennifer both spared and cursed. Where was this person with the gun? Why shoot them from a distance? And how did they choose? Would she be next?

Her feet dodged around one of the victims of their own accord. All women, Jennifer realized. Four in a row.

The shooter knew. He had to. Or was it a she? A sympathizing woman or some kind of gentleman. Jennifer became convinced of this as an elderly woman in a nightgown with a horrible neck wound was the next to go. There was an eruption of blood, a warm mist on Jennifer’s cheek, and then the woman’s body sagged straight to the pavement like a fuse had been removed.

Someone was sparing them this torture. They had limited ammunition. Couldn’t save them all. Someone knew. Not those army pricks who flew by with their hazard suits on, watching, watching. They probably had orders. Don’t kill civilians. As if that’s what any of them still were.

But this angel with her long barrel of release, with gifts of lead as valuable as gold, these bullets that could transmute the half-dead into the full, she had watch over them.

Jennifer’s fear vanished. It was the intentions that warped her mind, twisting shadows into bright ribbons of color. The shooter was up there crying, wiping tears from her eyes, using a skill her father had blessed her with on a farm out west, releasing poor creatures from the half-grip of death every time she pulled the trigger—a nice little fiction.

Another soul was released, a cloud of brains raining down, splattering the others, the delayed echo of a bang, the crack of prison walls crumbling, the resounding boom of freedom.

Sounds. Sounds that came late. Sounds Jennifer Shaw never heard for herself as they came, singing through that mad, mad air, to release her.

Part II • Dying for Seconds Chiang Xian • Dennis Newland

18 • Dennis Newland

Dennis sat in a pile of cereal boxes while the others stacked food in shopping carts. Cans rattled to the ground one aisle over. In front of him, little sacks of organic coffee rustled on the shelf as his girlfriend Lisa dug through something on the other side. Dennis looked down at his arm, pulled his hand away from the sleeve of his denim jacket. It was dark and sticky with blood. He should tell somebody. He should tell somebody. He should have told them back when he still could.

A cart squeaked past, little wheels spinning, a crushed box of Cheerios wedged under the front bar. Matt stopped and grabbed a few boxes, threw them on his pile of canned goods. “You okay, dude?”

Dennis jerked his head up and down. He could still do that. Maybe he could still speak if he really had to. He hoped he didn’t have to. His jaws felt locked together. Stiff.

“That shit was close back there. I thought we were goners for sure this time.”

More jerking of his head up and down. Matt stooped and grabbed a box of Captain Crunch. “I like this stuff. Good without milk.” He glanced over at Dennis. “You think we’ll ever taste fresh milk again? Or just that Parmalat crap for however long we’ve got left?”

Dennis tried to shrug. He couldn’t tell if he succeeded.

“Ah, fuckit.” Matt threw the box in the cart, adjusted the strap he’d rigged to his shotgun, and pushed his spoils down the aisle. “Better get your head together and grab some shit,” he called over his shoulder. “You ain’t eating nothin’ of mine!”

Dennis was left alone with his sticky sleeve. A bag of coffee tumbled off the shelf across from him and landed with a sad thud on the ground, the contents spilling out in a brown avalanche. Lisa was still digging through something on the other side. He could hear her cussing about the batteries in another iPod running dry. They were going through them like packs of gum. Stupid.

He looked down at his arm.

So fucking stupid.