Julie sits up and, patting her brother’s backside, stands. Jimmy finds his shoe and lets his sister brush him off while he ties the laces. She lifts him up with her powerful arm. They step away from the little hole of light on the ground, back down into the stars and moons, along a path lined with black sand. Julie keeps an arm across her face, dividing branches with her elbow. She leads Jimmy; he keeps his face down behind her, in the protection of his sister’s back.
Forty metres ahead of them, moving in the same direction, at exactly the same pace, are three cannibals. They are lost, and their diet, the tongues and teeth of living people, is somewhat more limited than the children’s. They are facing a rather depressing destiny. In their weakened condition the zombies have long given up the conversations that have consisted mainly of hooking fingers into vulnerable flesh. They lope along quietly, recoiling in irritation at anything that touches them. As night falls, too far above to be noticed, one of them collapses on his face. The other two, sad women with heavy masks, part ways, heading off in different directions. They do this not so much because they have lost a third but out of a failure to notice the loss of that person.
Julie spots him first. His back, lying low up ahead. Initially she thinks it’s torn paper. Then as they get closer a hand flips up in the green dust at the man’s side. Julie squeezes her brother’s forearm, stopping him behind her. They stand frozen, watching the body. After a few minutes the other hand performs the same flip, sending a twig up onto his white shirt. Then stillness. Julie steps closer, leaving her brother behind. She studies the back to see if it rises, if it’s breathing. Perfectly still. She turns and, covering her mouth, whispers, “I think it’s dying. I think it may be dead.”
She waves her hand backward, indicating to Jimmy that he should walk past in a wide circle. Jimmy is craning his neck up and around, trying to get a view beyond where his sister stands.
“Now! Go!”
Jimmy steps backward and, without losing sight of his sister, moves ahead of her through the forest. Julie steps closer. The body isn’t breathing. It doesn’t appear to be. Julie stoops to a knee and reaches down blindly to find a stone. She lobs the pebble into the air and it hits the zombie on the head, rapping his skull like a drum.Julie grabs her mouth and turns to run. She stops. The man must be dead.
“Wait there, Jimmy! I’m coming! Wait there!”
Julie runs as fast as she can. She leaps directly through a young maple tree growing a metre away from the still hand of the body. She catches up with Jimmy and holds him, panting heavily, out of breath. Jimmy reaches up and lays his closed fists against her back.
“OK. It’s OK. Let’s just keep going, OK?”
Jimmy pushes harder against her back, tightening his fists until they really hurt.
Suddenly a sharp roar from behind sends them squealing through the prickly forest.
When they’ve gone, the zombie, who has sat up, dies; his hands have fallen like birds at the sides of his feet.
