Ken ripped my sleeve, exposing the weeping bite marks on my forearm. No one said anything, but everyone knew what it meant, even me. I would get sick and die, and then I would become one of them – the dead that had been hunting us for months.

I reached out to touch Ken’s hand, but he slapped my wrist, stepping back, looking at me with disgust. The others stepped back as well. An invisible decision had been made.

Ken drew his shotgun and I barely had time to put up my hands before he shot me in the chest. Pain blossomed out, my blood spraying the walls, the floor. I hit the floor as I realized that he shot me. I couldn’t believe it. He said he loved me. 

“Can’t ruin such a pretty face,” Ken said with his usual suave.

“Jesus Christ, Ken,” Rachel said, turning away.

“Make sure she’s dead,” he said, walking away.

My mouth and glassy eyes stared wide open at all of them surrounding me as my life quickly bled out, gurgling, choking. Their faces faded into darkness.

I thought I knew what love was – gentle touches, deep kisses, sweet words whispered, maybe even a ring he found in a looted pawn shop – but I was only nineteen the day I died. I died knowing nothing about real love.

I don’t know how much time passed until I first became… aware. All I knew was weight pressing me down and utter darkness. At first I felt like I was cocooned in a comforter, wanting to hide from the morning sun, only it wasn’t that kind of bed. It was the garden variety. Dirt. In my mouth, up my nose, all over, wet and soft, densely packed. I screamed. The sound that emitted though muffled by it was deafening and frightening. Not human. Beyond understanding.

I had no thoughts then, only panicked instincts. My limbs spasmed, finally digging, reaching, like being trapped in a quicksand pit, scraping, throat gurgling, moaning until, finally, yes, breaching!  Fingers exposed to winter air, blowing away the crumbs but not the damp. So cold and stiff.

My nails raked the surface, scratching what I recognized vaguely as concrete, a sidewalk. I lost purchase and writhed. I would have slipped back down into the darkness, but a crushing grip seized my wrist, yanked. More of my arm became exposed, bits of light finally showing through. I whined, still waving, twisting in the grip. My other arm burst through the surface and was grabbed as well. Dirt fell away, my limbs burning, tearing, eyes gazing into the high noon sunlight, blinded.

All I knew was being lifted and the pain. I barely had left the hole before dropping onto my feet. I wobbled forward and backward, flailing against the thing that held my wrists. It shook me and grunted loudly, forcing me to look up.

I screamed into its decayed face, spraying clumps of dirt all over its stained shirt and tuxedo jacket. I must have scared it because it let go. Walked right past me. I hugged myself, so sore, like I had worked out for days. My fingers brushed something sticky. My bloodied shirt. I remembered the shot. Cautiously, I put a hand to my chest, squishing into the gaping hole there, grimacing. I looked at my hands, rotten and falling apart. I felt my face. My tear ducts were broken. My heart wasn’t beating. But I still felt sorrow.

I turned slowly, looking down at my feet. I moved experimentally forward, trying to talk to the zombie who had pulled me free. My words blurred, gurgled, babbled into grunts and choked gasps. It turned.

“Hurrr,” it grunted. It pointed to another set of hands. For the first time I noticed the others.

The others like me – like us, I thought. We had all been buried in this empty lot that had once meant something to humanity. To think I had once thought burial decent. Now it felt disgusting and wrong. I didn’t know what to think anymore.

I began to walk away, but stopped a few feet down the sidewalk. I turned.

This heavy-set man was already back on his knees, digging furiously, reaching down, his cheek pressed against the dirt, grunting as he rose with another writhing body from the dirt. He went on and on like that. An obese man seemed to thank him, an old lady attacked him before retreating back into her grave while a tall man simply stumbled into a shambling run without looking back. Regardless of their reactions, he continued his work. Others passed us, not even looking our way. I felt pulled to go, but didn’t join them.

I came back and helped him with a boy. Heavily bandaged under an open flannel shirt several sizes too large, he looked too young to be dead. His entire right arm was gone, so he was a little more difficult. We managed though, and the boy looked confused before blending into the passing crowd. Neither of us stood up, watching him go, sitting together in silence.

I felt the man staring at me and I was finally brave enough to take a long look at him. His age was hard to define with his sunken features, but his brown hair had no grey and looked long and full. Maybe thirty? Forty? Even twenty? Did age matter anymore? I thought of the boy never growing up. I thought of me never growing older, never having a child. I turned away, covering my face with my trembling hands, even though I had no more tears to hide.

He touched my shoulder. I looked up. “Mmm-aaaaakh,” the zombie man managed, mangled palm flat against his chest.

I reached down, tracing “MARK?” with dirt along the sidewalk.

“Ahh!” He nodded to me, before his head lolled awkwardly to one side with a crack. He smacked it straight again. He smirked, revealing a glimpse of rotted teeth.

I placed my finger to the dirt and wrote “Cindy” carefully next to his.

He leaned forward and traced a heart next to mine.

I smiled as he held out his hand.

We shook hands, helping each other stand up. The makeshift cemetery now empty, we joined the others heading down the sidewalk as we held each other’s hands tightly. I didn’t pay attention to where we were headed. I simply wanted to stay with him. I knew he felt the same when he pointed to a battered travel poster in a broken window showing a couple sharing a longboard on a rolling wave.

“Tah-hee-tee?” Mark wheezed from the effort to make such a complex word.

My joints cracked loudly as I made a fist and then stuck out my thumb and pinky, waggling it back and forth with a grin.

It was the first time I ever heard a zombie laugh, and it was beautiful.