Isaac Marion - Warm Bodies - A Novel

‘But we’re . . . what’s killing you. Now.’

She nods. ‘Sure, zombies are the most obvious threat. The fact that almost everyone who dies comes back and kills two more people . . . yeah, that’s some grim math. But the root problem has to be bigger than that, or maybe smaller, more subtle, and killing a million zombies isn’t going to fix it, because there’s always going to be more.’

Two Dead appear from around a corner and lunge at Julie. I crack their heads together and drop them, wondering if I might have studied martial arts in my old life. I seem to be a lot stronger than my lean frame suggests.

‘My dad doesn’t care about any of that,’ Julie continues as we walk down the loading tunnel and enter the plane. ‘He was an army general back when the government was still going on, so that’s how he thinks. Locate the threat, kill the threat, wait for orders from the big-picture people. But since the big picture is gone and the people who drew it are all dead, what are we supposed to do now? No one knows, so we do nothing. Just salvage supplies, kill zombies, and expand our walls further out into the city. Basically, Dad’s idea of saving humanity is building a really big concrete box, putting everybody in it, and standing at the door with guns until we get old and die.’ She flops across a seat and takes a deep breath, lets it out again. She sounds so tired. ‘I mean, obviously, staying alive is pretty fucking important,’ she says. ‘But there’s got to be something beyond that, right?’

My mind drifts through the last few days, and I find myself thinking about my kids. The image of them in that hallway, making a toy out of a stapler, playing together and laughing. Laughing. Have I seen other Dead children laugh? I can’t remember. But thinking about them, that look in their eyes as they hugged my legs, I feel strange emotions welling up in me. What is that look? Where does it come from? In that lovely film projected on their faces, what beautiful score is playing? What language is the dialogue? Can it be translated?

The jet cabin is silent for several minutes. Lying on her back, Julie cranes her head and looks out of the window upside down. ‘You live in an airplane, R,’ she says. ‘That’s pretty neat. I miss seeing airplanes in the sky. Have I told you about how I miss airplanes?’

I go to the record player. The Sinatra record is still going, skipping on a blank inner groove, so I nudge the needle to ‘Come Fly With Me’.

Julie smiles. ‘Smooth.’

I lie out on the floor and fold my hands over my chest, gazing up at the ceiling, haphazardly mouthing the song’s words.

‘Have I also told you,’ Julie says, twisting her head to look at me, ‘that in a weird way it’s actually been kinda nice, being here? I mean aside from almost getting eaten like four times. It’s been years since I’ve had this much time to just breathe and think and look out of windows. And you have a pretty decent record collection.’

She reaches down and sticks a daisy into my folded hands, then giggles. It takes me a moment to realise I look like the corpse in an old-fashioned funeral. I jolt upright as if struck by lightning, and Julie bursts out laughing. I can’t help a little smile.

‘And you know the craziest part, R?’ she says. ‘Sometimes I barely believe you’re a zombie. Sometimes I think you’re just wearing stage make-up, because when you smile . . . it’s pretty hard to believe.’

I lie down again and fold my hands behind my head. Embarrassed, I keep my face mirthless until Julie falls asleep. Then I slowly let it creep back, smiling at the ceiling as the stars flicker to life outside.

Early the following afternoon, her soft snoring tapers off. Still lying on the floor, I wait for the sounds of her waking up. The shifting of weight, the tight inhale of breath, the small whimper.

‘R,’ she says groggily.

‘Yeah.’

‘They’re right, you know.’

‘Who?’

‘Those skeletons. I saw the pictures they showed you. They’re right about what’ll probably happen.’

I say nothing.

‘One of our people got away. When your group attacked us, my friend Nora hid under a desk. She saw you . . . capture me. It might take Security some time to track which hive you took me to, but they’ll figure it out soon, and my dad will come here. He’ll kill you.’

‘Already . . . dead,’ I reply.

‘No you’re not,’ she says, and sits up in her chair. ‘You’re obviously not.’

I think about what she’s saying for a moment. ‘You want . . . to go back?’

‘No,’ she says, and then seems startled. ‘I mean, yeah, of course, but . . .’ She lets out a flustered groan. ‘It doesn’t matter either way, I have to. They’re going to come here and wipe you out. All of you.’

I fall silent again.

‘I don’t want to be responsible for that, okay?’ She seems to be pondering something as she talks. Her voice is tight, conflicted. ‘I’ve always been taught that zombies are just walking corpses to be disposed of, but . . . look at you. You’re more than that, right? So what if there are others like you?’

My face is stiff.

Julie sighs. ‘R . . . maybe you’re sappy enough to find martyrdom romantic, but what about the rest of these people? Your kids? What about them?’

She is nudging my mind down streets it’s rarely travelled. For however many months or years I’ve been here, I’ve never thought of these other creatures walking around me as people. Human, yes, but not people. We eat and sleep and shuffle through the fog, walking a marathon with no finish line, no medals, no cheering. None of the airport’s citizens seemed much perturbed when I killed four of us today. We view ourselves the same way we view the Living: as meat. Nameless, faceless, disposable. But Julie’s right. I have thoughts. I have some kind of a soul, shrivelled and impotent as it may be. So maybe the others do, too. Maybe there’s something there worth salvaging.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘You have . . . to leave.’

She nods silently.

‘But I’m . . . going with you.’

She laughs. ‘To the Stadium? Tell me that was a lame joke.’

I shake my head.

‘Well, let’s think about that a moment, shall we? You? Are a zombie. As well-preserved and kinda charming as you may be, you are a zombie, and guess what everyone in the Stadium over the age of ten is training seven days a week to do?’

I say nothing.

‘Exactly. To kill zombies. So, if I can make this any clearer – you can’t come with me. Because they will kill you.’

I clench my jaw. ‘So?’

She tilts her head, and her sarcasm dissolves. Her voice becomes tentative. ‘What do you mean “so”? Do you want to be dead? Really dead?’

My reflex is to shrug. The shrug has been my default response for so long. But as I lie there on the floor with her worried eyes looking down at me, I remember the feeling that jolted through me the moment I woke up yesterday, that feeling of No! and Yes! That feeling of anti-shrug.

‘No,’ I say to the ceiling. ‘I don’t want to die.’

As I say it, I realise I’ve just broken my syllable record.

Julie nods. ‘Well, good.’

I take a deep breath and stand up. ‘Need . . . to think,’ I tell her, avoiding eye contact. ‘Back . . . soon. Lock . . . door.’

I leave the plane, and her eyes follow me out.

People are staring at me. I was always a bit of an outsider here in the airport, but now my mystique has thickened like port wine. When I enter a room, everyone stops moving and watches me. But the looks on their faces aren’t entirely grim. There are notes of fascination buried in their reproach.

I find M studying his reflection in a lobby window, sticking his fingers in his mouth and prodding. I think he’s trying to put his face back together.