She’s looking at me so hard I start to squirm. ‘It’s creepy,’ she says. ‘Looks . . . supernatural, almost. Do they ever change colour? Like when you kill people or something?’
I try not to sigh. ‘I think . . . you’re thinking . . . of vampires.’
‘Oh, right, right.’ She chuckles and gives a rueful shake of her head. ‘At least those aren’t real yet. Too many monsters to keep track of these days.’
Before I can take offence, she looks up at me and smiles. ‘Anyway . . . I like them. Your eyes. They’re actually kinda pretty. Creepy . . . but pretty.’
It’s probably the best compliment I’ve received in my entire Dead life. Ignoring my idiot stare, Julie wanders off into the house, humming to herself.
The storm is raging outside, with occasional thunderclaps. I’m grateful that our house happens to have all its windows intact. Most of the others’ were smashed long ago by looters or feeders. I glimpse a few debrained corpses on our neighbours’ green lawns, but I’d like to imagine our hosts got out alive. Made it to one of the Stadiums, maybe even some walled-off paradise in the mountains, angelic choirs singing behind pearl-studded titanium gates . . .
I sit in the living room listening to the rain fall while Julie putters around the house. After a while she comes back with an armful of dry clothes and dumps them on the love seat. She holds up a pair of jeans about ten sizes too big. ‘What do you think?’ she says, wrapping the waist around her entire body. ‘Do these make me look fat?’ She drops them and digs around in the pile, pulls out a mass of cloth that appears to be a dress. ‘I can use this for a tent if we get lost in the woods tomorrow. God, these folks must have made a fancy feast for some lucky zombie.’
I shake my head, making a gag face.
‘What, you don’t eat fat people?’
‘Fat . . . not alive. Waste product. Need . . . meat.’
She laughs. ‘Oh, so you’re an audiophile and a food snob! Jesus.’ She tosses the clothes aside and lets out a deep breath. ‘Well, all right. I’m exhausted. The bed in there isn’t too rotten. I’m going to sleep.’
I lie back on the cramped love seat, settling in for a long night alone with my thoughts. But Julie doesn’t leave. Standing there in the bedroom doorway, she looks at me for a long minute. I’ve seen this look before, and I brace myself for whatever’s coming.
‘R . . .’ she says. ‘Do you . . . have to eat people?’
I sigh inside, so exhausted by these ugly questions, but when did a monster ever deserve its privacy?
‘Yes.’
‘Or you’ll die?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you didn’t eat me.’
I hesitate.
‘You rescued me. Like three times.’
I nod slowly.
‘And you haven’t eaten anyone since then, right?’
I frown in concentration, thinking back. She’s right. Not counting the few bites of leftover brains here and there, I’ve been gastronomically celibate since the day I met her.
A peculiar little half-smile twitches on her face. ‘You’re kind of . . . changing, aren’t you?’
As usual, I am speechless.
‘Well, goodnight,’ she says, and shuts the bedroom door.
I lie there on the love seat, gazing up at the water-stained cottage-cheese ceiling.
‘What’s going on with you?’ M asks me over a cup of mouldy coffee in the airport Starbucks. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, I’m okay. Just changing.’
‘How can you change? If we all start from the same blank slate, what makes you diverge?’
‘Maybe we’re not blank. Maybe the debris of our old lives still shapes us.’
‘But we don’t remember those lives. We can’t read our diaries.’
‘It doesn’t matter. We are where we are, however we got here. What matters is where we go next.’
‘But can we choose that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We’re Dead. Can we really choose anything?’
‘Maybe. If we want to bad enough.’
*
The rain drumming on the roof. The creak of weary timbers. The prickle of the old cushions through the holes in my shirt. I’m busy searching my post-death memory for the last time I went this long without food when I notice Julie standing in the doorway again. Her arms are folded on her chest and her hip is pressed against the door frame. Her foot taps an anxious rhythm on the floor.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Well . . .’ she says. ‘I was just thinking. The bed’s a king-size. So I guess, if you wanted to . . . I wouldn’t care if you joined me in there.’ I raise my eyebrows a little. Her face reddens. ‘Look, all I’m saying – all I’m saying – is I don’t mind giving you a side of the bed. These rooms are kinda spooky, you know? I don’t want the ghost of Mrs Sprat crushing me in my sleep. And considering I haven’t showered in over a week, you really don’t smell much worse than I do – maybe we’ll cancel each other out.’ She shrugs one shoulder, whatever, and disappears into the bedroom.
I wait a few minutes. Then, with great uncertainty, I get up and follow her in. She is already in the bed, curled into the foetal position with the blankets pulled tight around her. I slowly ease myself onto the far opposite edge. The blankets are all on her side, but I certainly don’t need to stay warm. I am perpetually room-temperature.
