J. Lennon - See You in Paradise

“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” I said.

“Feh,” she said, with a shrug, and we walked off arm in arm.

As the days passed by, Dan slowly came around. He looked pale, and there were bandages on his head and neck where the revivification fluids and electrical current had gone in, but his eyes were clear and he followed us with them as we moved around the hospital room. Chloe and I had taken to sharing one another’s shifts.

“Let’s make out,” she said one morning.

“He’s watching us.”

“So?”

She sat on my lap and we snogged as a cool polluted wind blew through the open window. I hazarded glances at Dan, who gazed at us intently, blinking. His soundless mouth opened and closed. Without solid food, his doughy countenance had given way to a new and slightly frightening chiseled look.

“I think he’s trying to talk.”

“Who?” Chloe said.

“Dan.”

She tossed her hair over hear ear and winked at Dan. “Zombie Dan,” she said. “Do you remember sex?”

A small groan seemed to escape him. Or maybe it was a noise from outside.

“How about boobs? Do you remember boobs?”

“I’m sure he remembers boobs,” I said, trying to nip this one in the bud.

“Here,” Chloe said brightly, hopping down from my lap. I awkwardly adjusted myself with a sweaty hand. Chloe stood beside the bed, unbuttoning her blouse. Dan stared. He seemed excited, though not in an especially lascivious manner. Before he died, women’s breasts had always rendered him speechless; he tended to ogle. It had always irritated me when this resulted in his getting laid, which was most of the time.

But now his excitement seemed purely empirical, like that of a scientist gazing in sober wonder at the test results scrolling across a computer screen. Chloe unlatched her bra and did a little dance. “Remember, Dan? Boobies?” She scat-sang the stripping song.

“Okay,” I said. “That’s probably enough.”

“It’s therapy,” she said. “We’ve got to get his motor running.” She leaned over, bringing her chest about six inches from Dan’s stunned face. “Here ya go, pal, get a good look.”

Neither of us was prepared for the speed with which Dan’s hands shot out from under the sheets and clamped themselves onto Chloe’s breasts. She yelped. I gasped and jumped out of the chair to pull her away. But she warded me off. “No, no,” she said. “I think it’s all right. Look at the little bastard go.” Dan had settled into a firm, somewhat mechanical knead, palpating Chloe like a masseuse-in-training. He scowled, licking his lips. A sound escaped him.

“Was that a word?” Chloe asked.

“Oh my God,” I said.

“Stizz,” said Dan.

“It was a word!”

“Niztizz!”

“Oh, listen!” Chloe cried, turning to me. “He’s talking! He’s saying ‘Nice tits’!”

It was true. He was quite coherent now. Clearly he was remembering—“nice tits” was a thing he always used to say.

We called Ruth Larsen, who since the procedure had spent far more time than we had expected sitting around the family apartment. She claimed to be attending to Dan’s business affairs. But a zombie didn’t have any business, and it seemed clear that she was really spending her time drinking. Chloe had been encamped in one of the many guest rooms at chez Larsen and could attest to the woman’s dissolution, which involved a lot of vituperative mutterings and slow, self-indulgent groans. A nurse had told us that her reaction, upon seeing her child show the first signs of renewed life, was to run crying from the room. We hadn’t seen her around the hospital since, though she insisted that she habitually sat with him through the night. The nurses, upon hearing she had told us this, had rolled their eyes.

“He what?” Ruth barked in response to the news.

“He spoke,” I repeated. “He looked out the window and said, ‘Nice day.’” This was the lie Chloe and I had agreed upon.

“It’s cloudy.”

“Maybe he thought that was nice.”

A silence hung between us. I cleared my throat.

“Do you want to come see him?” I said. “Chloe and I are here now.”

“What is she doing there? This isn’t her shift.”

“We’re sharing,” I said.

Mrs. Larsen sighed. “I’ll be there in an hour,” she said.

It was a very long hour. Now that Dan was responsive and alert, he was uncomfortable to be with. Also he appeared to want to feel up Chloe again. He stared at her restowed rack, blinked rapidly, and emitted a trickle of inarticulate mumbles which occasionally, startlingly, broke out into intelligibility. “frummarfladmmbabaamummummboxturtle,” he said. “Gunnuunnnununnnufrenchfries. Hoffoffofoffffagaggaafucker-salassalassallaaaapeanut, peanut, peanut.” He licked his lips, which would prove to be a permanent tic.

“I’m going out for a smoke,” Chloe said quietly.

“All right,” I replied.

“Mummahumummacigarette,” Dan said.

“You want a cigarette?”

“Ummacigarette.”

She reached into her purse, removed a pack, and slid out a cigarette. Dan leaned forward. She placed it in his mouth.

“It’s backwards,” I said.

“Like he knows.”

Dan relaxed into his pillows. The cigarette dangled from his lip like a dead branch from a maple tree. He seemed relieved and his blinking slowed.

When Chloe returned, it was with a slightly unsteady Ruth Larsen, who gripped Chloe’s arm for support. The first words from her mouth were “Jesus Christ.”

“Hi, Mrs. Larsen,” I said.

A change came over Dan when his mother walked into the room. He sat up again, and the cigarette went erect in his mouth. He brought up his hands, much as he had when Chloe took her shirt off, and his fingers groped and twitched. He scowled.

“What did you do to him?” Mrs. Larsen demanded.

“He just got like this,” I said weakly.

“Fudder. Fudder! Prmbnmnshn.”

“Daniel!” she bleated. “Stop that nonsense immediately!”

In response, Dan let out another “Fudder” and sprang out of bed. We all jumped back. Mrs. Larsen screamed a little scream.

After weeks of his being dead and days of him lying insensibly in the hospital, Dan’s sudden mobility struck us all dumb with astonishment. He tottered around the room like a child, bracing himself against the table and chairs. His gait was stiff and rubbery, but he made it to the window and looked out. He turned, his cigarette clenched between yellow teeth. “Fudder!” he growled. His mother cringed.

“You’re scaring your mother, Dan,” Chloe scolded.

She shouldn’t have called attention to herself. Dan turned to her. His face relaxed, his eyes grew misty, and the wet cigarette fell out of his mouth. “Tizz,” he sighed, flecks of tobacco sticking to his chin, and he lunged forward and embraced Chloe, lifting her off the ground. She let out a yelp. His hands found her behind, engaging it in a desperate clutch. “My God,” Ruth Larsen said.

“Dan,” I offered, “put her down, please.”

“Sazz. Nisazz.”

“Thank you, Dan, that’s enough,” Chloe gasped. It seemed to get through to him. He set her on the ground, and she gently pushed him away.

“Peanut,” he said. “Fudder.”

“What have you done to him?” his mother again asked us.

“Mrs. Larsen,” Chloe said, her face red, “we’ll be taking a little break now. I think you need some quality time with your son.”

“I—”

“He needs you, Mrs. Larsen.” She motioned to me with a thin, pale finger. “Let’s go,” she said, panting.

I followed. She led me right to my apartment and into bed, where we went at it with giddy élan. When we were through we lay together, tangled in the sheets, breathing slow and even breaths. It was a relief to be alone, after the day’s shocks and embarrassments.