I hear a scream nearby and I turn. It’s her. She’s here. Julie is here, older now, maybe nineteen, her baby fat melted away revealing sharper lines and finer poise, muscles small but toned on her girlish frame. She is huddled in a corner, unarmed, sobbing and screaming as M creeps towards her. He always finds the women. Their memories are porn to him. I still feel disorientated, unsure of where or who I am, but . . .
I shove M aside and snarl, ‘No. Mine.’
He grits his teeth like he’s about to turn on me, but a gunshot tears into his shoulder and he shuffles across the room to help two other zombies bring down a heavily armed kid.
I approach the girl. She cowers before me, her tender flesh offering me all the things I’m accustomed to taking, and my instincts start to reassert themselves. The urge to rip and tear surges into my arms and jaw. But then she screams again, and something inside me moves, a feeble moth struggling against a web. In this brief moment of hesitation, still warm with the nectar of a young man’s memories, I make a choice.
I let out a gentle groan and inch towards the girl, trying to force kindness into my dull expression. I am not no one. I am a nine-year-old boy, I am a fifteen-year-old boy, I am—
She throws a knife at my head.
The blade sticks straight into the centre of my forehead and quivers there. But it has penetrated less than an inch, only grazing my frontal lobe. I pull it out and drop it. I hold out my hands, making soft noises through my lips, but I’m helpless. How do I appear unthreatening when her lover’s blood is running down my chin?
I’m just a few feet away from her now. She is fumbling through her jeans for another weapon. Behind me, the Dead are finishing their butchery. Soon they will turn their attention to this dim corner of the room. I take a deep breath.
‘Ju . . . lie,’ I say.
It rolls off my tongue like honey. I feel good just saying it.
Her eyes go wide. She freezes.
‘Julie,’ I say again. I put out my hands. I point at the zombies behind me. I shake my head.
She stares at me, making no sign that she understands. But when I reach out to touch her, she doesn’t move. And she doesn’t stab me.
I reach my free hand into the head-wound of a fallen zombie and collect a palmful of black, lifeless blood. Slowly, with gentle movements, I smear it on her face, down her neck and onto her clothes. She doesn’t even flinch. She is probably catatonic.
I take her hand and pull her to her feet. At that moment M and the others finish devouring their prey and turn to inspect the room. Their eyes fall on me. They fall on Julie. I walk towards them, gripping her hand, not quite dragging her. She staggers behind me, staring straight ahead.
M sniffs the air cautiously. But I know he’s smelling exactly what I’m smelling: nothing. Just the negative-smell of Dead blood. It’s spattered all over the walls, soaked into our clothes, and smeared carefully on a young Living girl, concealing the glow of her life under its dark, overpowering musk.
Without a word, we leave the high-rise and head back to the airport. I walk in a daze, full of strange and kaleidoscopic thoughts. Julie holds limply to my hand, staring at the side of my face with wide eyes, trembling lips.
After delivering our abundant harvest of leftover flesh to the non-hunters – the Boneys, the children, the stay-at-home moms – I take Julie to my house. My fellow Dead give me curious looks as I pass. Because it requires both volition and restraint, the act of intentionally converting the Living is almost never performed. Most conversions happen by accident: a feeding zombie is killed or otherwise distracted before finishing his business, voro interruptus. The rest of our converts arise from traditional deaths, private affairs of illness or mishap or classical Living-on-Living violence that take place outside our sphere of interest. So the fact that I have purposely brought this girl home unconsumed is a thing of mystery, a miracle on a par with giving birth. M and the others allow me plenty of room in the halls, regarding me with confusion and wonder. If they knew the full truth of what I’m doing, their reactions would be . . . less moderate.
Gripping Julie’s hand, I hurry her away from their probing eyes. I lead her to Gate 12, down the boarding tunnel and into my home: a 747 commercial jet. It’s not very spacious, the floor plan is impractical, but it’s the most isolated place in the airport and I enjoy the privacy. Sometimes it even tickles my numb memory. Looking at my clothes, I seem like the kind of person who probably travelled a lot. Sometimes when I ‘sleep’ here, I feel the faint rising sensation of flight, the blasts of recycled air blowing in my face, the soggy nausea of packaged sandwiches. And then the fresh lemon zing of poisson in Paris. The burn of tajine in Morocco. Are these places all gone now? Silent streets, cafes full of dusty skeletons?
