Isaac Marion - Warm Bodies

We sit down at the cafe table and I set one of the meal trays in front of her. ‘En… joy,’ I say.

She jabs at the frozen-solid noodles with a plastic fork. She looks at me. ‘You really don’t remember much, do you? How long has it been since you ate real food?’

I shrug.

‘How long has it been since you… died or whatever?’

I tap a finger against my temple and shake my head.

She looks me over. ‘Well, it can’t have been very long. You look pretty good for a corpse.’

I wince again at her language, but I realise she can’t possibly know the sensitive cultural connotations of the word ‘corpse’. M uses it sometimes as a joke, and I use it myself in some of my darker moments, but coming from an outsider it ignites a defensive indignation she wouldn’t understand. I breathe deep and let it go.

‘Anyway, I can’t eat it like this,’ she says, pushing her plastic fork into the food until one of the tines snaps. ‘I’m going to go find a microwave. Hold on.’

She gets up and wanders into one of the empty restaurants. She has forgotten her shamble, and her hips sway rhythmically. It’s risky, but I find myself not caring.

‘Here we go,’ she says when she comes back, taking a deep whiff of spicy steam. ‘Mmm. I haven’t had Thai in for ever. We don’t do real food at the Stadium any more, just basic nutrition and Carbtein. Carbtein tablets, Carbtein powder, Carbtein juice . Jesus H. Gross.’ She sits down and takes a bite of freezer-burned tofu. ‘Oh wow. That’s almost tasty .’

I sit there and watch her eat. I notice she seems to be having trouble getting the clumpy, congealed noodles down her throat. I fetch a lukewarm bottle of beer from the restaurant’s cooler and set it on the table.

Julie stops eating and looks at the bottle. She looks at me and smiles. ‘Why, Mr Zombie, you read my mind.’ She twists off the cap and takes a long drink. ‘I haven’t had beer in a while, either. No mind-altering substances allowed in the Stadium. Have to stay alert at all times, stay vigilant, blah blah blah.’ She takes another drink and gives me an appraising look laced with sarcasm. ‘Maybe you’re not such a monster, Mr Zombie. I mean, anyone who appreciates a good beer is at least halfway okay in my book.’

I look at her and hold a hand to my chest. ‘My… name…’ I wheeze, but can’t think how to continue.

She sets the beer down and leans forward a little. ‘You have a name?’

I nod.

Her lip curls in an amused half-smile. ‘What’s your name?’

I close my eyes and think hard, trying to pull it out of the void, but I’ve tried this so many times before. ‘Rrr,’ I say, trying to pronounce it.

‘Rur? Your name is Rur?’

I shake my head. ‘Rrrrr…’

‘Rrr? It starts with R?’

I nod.

‘Robert?’

I shake my head.

‘Rick? Rodney?’

I shake my head.

‘Uh… Rambo?’

I let out a sigh and look at the table.

‘How about I just call you “R”? That’s a start, right?’

My eyes dart to hers. ‘R.’ A slow smile creeps across my face.

‘Hi, R,’ she says. ‘I’m Julie. But you knew that already, didn’t you. Guess I’m a fucking celebrity.’ She nudges the beer towards me. ‘Have a drink.’

I eye the bottle for a second, feeling a strange kind of nausea at the thought of what’s inside. Dark amber emptiness. Lifeless piss. But I don’t want to ruin this improbably warm moment with my stupid undead hang-ups. I accept the beer and take a long pull. I can feel it trickling through tiny perforations in my stomach and dampening my shirt. And to my amazement, I can feel a slight buzz spreading through my brain. This isn’t possible, of course, since I have no blood-stream for the alcohol to enter, but I feel it anyway. Is it psychosomatic? Maybe a distant memory of the drinking experience left over from my old life? If so, apparently I was a lightweight.

Julie grins at my stupefied expression. ‘Drink up,’ she says. ‘I’m actually more of a wine girl anyway.’

I take another pull. I can taste her raspberry lip gloss on the rim. I find myself imagining her dolled up for a concert, her neck-length hair swept and styled, her small body radiant in a red party dress, and me kissing her, the lipstick smearing onto my mouth, spreading bright rouge onto my grey lips…

I slide the bottle a safe distance away from me.

Julie chuckles and returns to her food. She pokes at it for a few minutes, ignoring my presence at the table. I’m about to make a doomed attempt at small talk when she looks up at me, all traces of joviality gone from her face, and says, ‘So, “R”. Why are you keeping me here?’

The question hits me like a surprise slap. I look at the ceiling. I gesture around at the airport in general, towards the distant groans of my fellow Dead. ‘Keep you safe.’

‘Bullshit.’

There is silence. She looks at me hard. My eyes retreat.

‘Listen,’ she says. ‘I get that you saved my life back there in the city. And I guess I’m grateful for that. So, yeah. Thanks for saving my life. Or sparing my life. Whatever. But you walked me into this place, I’m sure you could walk me out. So again: why are you keeping me here?’

Her eyes are like hot irons on the side of my face, and I realise I can’t escape. I put a hand on my chest, over my heart. My ‘heart’. Does that pitiful organ still represent anything? It lies motionless in my chest, pumping no blood, serving no purpose, and yet my feelings still seem to originate inside its cold walls. My muted sadness, my vague longing, my rare flickers of joy. They pool in the centre of my chest and seep out from there, diluted and faint, but real.

I press my hand against my heart. Then I reach slowly towards Julie, and press against hers. Somehow, I manage to meet her eyes.

She looks down at my hand, then gives me a dry stare. ‘Are you. Fucking. Kidding me.’

I withdraw my hand and drop my eyes to the table, grateful that I’m incapable of blushing. ‘Need… to wait,’ I mumble. ‘They… think you’re… new convert. They’ll notice.’

‘How long?’

‘Few… days. They’ll… forget.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ she sighs, and covers her eyes with her hand, shaking her head.

‘You’ll… be okay,’ I tell her. ‘Promise.’

She ignores this. She pulls an iPod out of her pocket and stuffs the earbuds into her ears. She returns to her food, listening to music that’s just a faint hiss to me.

This date is not going well. Once again the absurdity of my inner thoughts overwhelms me, and I want to crawl out of my skin, escape my ugly, awkward flesh and be a skeleton, naked and anonymous. I’m about to stand up and leave when Julie pulls a bud out of one ear and gives me a squinting, penetrating look. ‘You’re… different, aren’t you?’ she says.

I don’t respond.

‘Because I’ve never heard a zombie talk, other than “brains!” and all that silly groaning. And I’ve never seen a zombie take any interest in humans beyond eating them. I’ve definitely never had one buy me a drink. Are there… others like you?’

Again I feel the urge to blush. ‘Don’t… know.’

She pushes her noodles around the plate. ‘A few days,’ she repeats.

I nod.

‘What am I supposed to do here till it’s safe to run away? I hope you don’t expect me to just sit in your housejet taking blood baths all week.’

I think for a moment. A rainbow of images floods my head, probably snippets of old movies I’ve seen, all sappy and romantic and utterly impossible. I have got to get ahold of myself.

‘I’ll… entertain,’ I say eventually, and offer an unconvincing smile. ‘You are… guest.’