The Last (Zombie Ocean 1)

  This is not a baby step. This is an almighty leap, but I'm tired of rehabilitation. I'm ready to live or die.

  * * *

  Lara is standing in front of Rien already. My heart is booming. Excuses for why I might have to suddenly turn and run away pop into my head, but none suffice. I'm on this course now. Orange blossoms flutter down around me in slow motion, like a samurai heading for war.

  I walk up to her with flowers in my hand, bought around the corner. She's wearing a smart cream blouse and twill orange skirt, with her mass of curly black hair condensed and twirled atop her head like a modernist sculpture. A strong twinge is setting in.

  She smiles to see me.

  "You look beautiful," I say, that truest cliché. "These are for you."

  She takes the flowers and laughs. "They're gorgeous, thank you, Amo. You clean up good."

  I smile. "Thanks. And they're Caribbean Lilies. I've always liked them."

  She lifts the flowers to her nose. They are delicate frondy things, with many weaving purple buds tucked within a bed of long petals. I smelled them already, they remind me of coconuts.

  "This is a good start."

  I smile. "It can only get better. Shall we?"

  I present my elbow. She takes it, sending fireworks up into my brain. I stride us into Rien.

  Inside it's a classical French restaurant with a modern twist. Most of the walls and floor are polished concrete, dressed with soft down-lights and oddly placed squares of inset industrial metal, giving the impression there are a dozen hidden alcoves tucked into the walls. The techno cat is a gimmick really, hardly better-looking than those walking dogs of ten years earlier, but the lightshow is already rippling across LEDs embedded in the screen-wall. They flow and ebb like the soothing wind in Deepcraft.

  It takes all my concentration to address the maître d'. We sit down at our table. The twinge is already a storm between my temples with Lara at the eye, and everything else is a gray swirl. She's talking, and I catch myself thinking how awful it will be for her if I collapse and die now. Will she ever get over it?

  I push back. In my mind I step into the darkness. I put my mouth on autopilot.

  "I'm from Iowa," I tell her, answering a question she possibly asked. "My folks have a little farm, they used to raise pigs but now it's just grass for feed. When I was five years old I wanted to be a pig cowboy, riding a pig around the plains. That's actually true. Then I wanted to be a football-player, then an artist, and that's what I've been doing ever since."

  "I can imagine you riding a pig," she says. "Painting zombies from pigback."

  I chuckle. "It's not only zombies. I do book covers too, all kinds. I used to have this great idea for a graphic novel about a graffiti artist like Banksy who becomes a superhero. Maybe I'll do it one day."

  She nods along. "Who doesn't like Banksy? I think that'd be fun. He'd fight crime and leave social justice tags at the crime scenes."

  I laugh again. My left temple feels like it's going to pop, but at least it's only the left. "What about you? Where are you from?"

  She taps the flowers in their vase. I hadn't noticed the waiter bring a vase to put them in, but I guess that happened. "You were pretty close with these. I'm from St. Kitts in the Caribbean originally, but I barely remember that, we left when I was just a kid. My mom was French Caribbean, my dad was in the navy, so I'm a navy brat and I grew up all over. As for childhood dreams, I wanted to be a princess, then an astronaut, and somewhere along the way a bank manager or a lawyer. Now I'm a barista. I'm sort of happily floating along."

  My eyes prickle and my brain is stewing. "It sounds nice."

  "It is. I went to law school for four years, passed the bar, but the stress burned me out. I took a coffee course and ended up at Sir Clowdesley, and I haven't looked back since."

  I nod. "I know something about burning out. I was hospitalized for a while, and the doctor said I might be allergic to art."

  She laughs. "That's not even a thing."

  I shrug. "For about six months I couldn't paint a thing without migraines. I can't watch movies now because they're too much art. It's getting better though."

  She studies me appraisingly, looks to the panel and back. "So you really do suffer for your art."

  I laugh. "I suppose. I hadn't thought about it that way. Anyway, give me your hand."

  "What? Why?"

  I want to change this conversation's direction, that's why, but I'm not going to say that. "Can I see it just a second?"

  She frowns, then cautiously extends her arm across the table, which is bare wood. They haven't even given us any cutlery yet, and of course there's no tablecloth. Rien means nothing, after all.

  "You're not going to read my palm are you?"

  "Better than that." I take her hand. More fireworks shoot in my head, rising to a crescendo. Her nutty skin is warm and smooth. What am I doing? I don't really know. I'm being carried away. I cast my mind back for something Hank at Yangtze once told me about the immutable laws of attraction.

  "This skin tone is probably between Fawn and Isabelline," I say, tapping the back of her hand. "I know that because I'm an artist. Have you ever heard of those colors?"

  She shakes her head. I wink. "They're both kinds of brown." Before she can pull her hand back I turn it over and tap her palm gently. Classic Hank move. "This is between Ecru and Fallow. Have you heard of those?"

  "Are they kinds of brown?" The sarcasm drips off her.

  "Very astute, they both are. According to some ancient peoples all colors have a meaning. If you combine these two colors," I tap her palm and the back of her hand lightly again, "you get a kind of equation that predicts your personality and your future."

  "So what's my future, oh seer of color?"

  "Happiness," I say, and smile sincerely. I look in her eyes and just keep on making it up. "Everything you want. All good things for you, Lara."

  I hold her gaze a moment longer than is comfortable, then let her hand go. She gives a little start, like she's waking from hypnosis. It wasn't anything like that though. It felt more like a blessing. I don't know where it even came from.

  "Order for me, would you," I say, while she's still looking slightly confused. "I've got something in my eye."

  I barely manage to get up from the table. The room spins and threatens to wash out in gray. The pain has been mounting since we met on the street, and I feel like a volcano about to blow. I weave my blurry way between the tables and chairs and into the toilet, where I flip down the lid and slump on the seat.

  Tears leak from my eyes. I can't take this. It hurts too much. I'm out there talking nonsense, and the darkness doesn't help. I feel like I'm going to throw up. How can I eat like this, when I'm so far from hungry?

  I drop to my knees on the toilet floor and rest my head against the wall. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and wish for an angelic host to come beaming down through Rien's roof and airlift me out. That would be awesome.

  Then as if in answer to my prayer, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I barely know what I'm doing, but I ease it out. I read the message.

  I'm in the darkness, running. I just stood with Blucy for twenty minutes, doing nothing. The air is cool and the corridors are long. You're here with me, Amo. We're running this thing together. Our diviners are firing off like crazy, and we're getting it all. Potato dolls, plastic mop handles, Leatherman wrenches, whatever it calls for, we get it.

  We can't be stopped. We're in this together. Breathe clear and get it done Amo. This thing is not going to take us both down with it. You out there and me in here, we have this.

  I suck in a breath. Of course it's from Cerulean, that glorious bastard. I push out a breath and tap on my phone.

  Sorely needed that. Thank you. Slumped in the toilet freaking out. I'm going back in!!

  The hammer in my head is still clanging and twingeing, but I can face it a little longer. I get up and brush down my knees, thankfully only dust. I wash my hands thoroughly. I go
out.

  She looks up brightly when I arrive. The mood feels different now; even I can sense it through the fog in my head. She's serious now in the same way she was flippant before.

  "I ordered you mushroom spaghetti," she says. "Garlic bread. Are you OK?"

  "I'm better now. Thanks for ordering, that sounds great."

  We sit in companionable silence for a time, watching the light show. The video jockey is playing it understated, working ripples of color that threaten to become clear shapes but never quite do. Sometimes the images look like clay on a potter's kiln rotating, but with bumps bulging in and out in strange organic ways. The cat rumbles over and mews a Britney Spears song at us. We toss it scraps from our starter bread, which it hoovers up then continues on its way.

  Our food comes and we eat, delicate dishes painted with dots and strokes of colorful sauce, more relaxed now. We talk about art and the décor of Rien, about life in New York, the subway, the orange blossoms, our parents, but there's an undercurrent to everything now, a lovely balance of comfort and tension that makes the pain in my head just manageable. This is promise.

  She twirls a strand of dark hair idly round her little finger. Her bright white eyes fix on me a lot, and I like it. I reach my hand across the table, and after sipping her wine she lets hers drop to rest beside mine. I stroke her finger with my thumb. Heat zings between us, and we're both melting. These are the hormones that I'm not supposed to have, and they are electrifying.

  We talk about ambitions and holidays we've been on. She likes taking long walks on the beach. I'd like to paint that. She'll make us a cup of coffee from hand-roasted beans when we come back. I'll paint that too. We get through starters and main. It fills me up, but I keep eating. She's looking at me differently now. Perhaps I've passed a test, but I don't know what. The bigger test is still coming. She brings it up when we've finished our bottle of wine.

  "Are you going to show me, then?"

  I smile and bring out my laptop, setting it on the table. One of the waiters comes to clear away our plates helpfully. I swizz the screen around.

  "It's not such beautiful fare for dinner," I say. "Forgive that."

  "I want to see."

  I bring up the penultimate panel again, full-screen, then point to the right arrow on the keyboard. "You can click it."

  She studies yesterday's panel for a long moment, the tower from above, the ruined city, then clicks, and studies the final page even longer. Finally she looks up at me.

  "I get it," she says. "I like it."

  She takes my hand. I did not expect that. And weirdly, instead of making the burn go up in my head harder, it takes a chunk off. I let out a gasp, as the weight starts to come loose. A great chunk of it is calving away like Arctic ice, terrifying and exhilarating.

  "You lost someone," she says. "I understand that. I know what that's like, and what it's like to want them back."

  I can't stop my eyes from welling up. The chunk of my pain falls into the water and is gone, leaving me paralyzingly free. I can breathe again.

  I nod imperceptibly. I didn't just lose someone over a year ago, I lost everyone: my friends who couldn't understand why I was blanking their calls, my girlfriend who couldn't be with me in silence, my parents who stopped treating me like the adult son they were proud of and instead saw me as an invalid child to be treated with kid gloves, but most of all I lost myself. I lost who I was in the face of the twinges and the coma and the fear, but maybe that's somehow changing back now.

  I take her hand in both of mine.

  "It's just zombies," I say.

  She laughs. There is emotion in her eyes too. Another chunk of pain and pressure starts to fall away. Is this my mind or my suffering, I don't know, but I dive into it. I lift her hand to my lips and kiss it gently. She gives a little gasp.

  "Let's skip dessert," she says.

  I leave money on the table. We hurry down the streets together. We kiss on the subway, at first tender but growing passionate and hungry. I don't know what is happening to me. Everything really is changing. I run my fingers through her curly hair and she whispers in my ear something about colors and lust. The street rolls by and the block comes and goes, then we're in my room and moving as one, and the last of the walls of pain that have barred me in for so long come tumbling down.

  I hold onto her and she holds onto me, both undergoing our own transformations. She is lovely and deep as an ocean. Perhaps I am something the same for her, two lost souls crossing in the dark of the fulfillment center, finding fulfillment in each other's embrace.

  I kiss her ear. She presses hard against me. We move together like the waves, in urgent rhythmic motion.

  That night the apocalypse strikes.

  APOCALYPSE

  4. OUTSIDE

  I wake up a new man.

  It's hard to describe the feeling lying on the rumpled sheets with Lara pressed against my side. Faint morning light is filtering in through the blinds on the skylight, there's a tingling sensation all across my body, and the constant sense of pressure in the back of my mind is gone completely.

  I can't believe it. It feels like an extension of a dream into wakefulness.

  I get up slowly, rolling my body forward. No customary warning twinge comes as the first stimulation of the day rolls in. I rub my eyes but no pain awakens there. I feel good. It's a miracle.

  I turn. In the dim light Lara behind me looks beautiful with her curly hair spilled across the pillow. She mumbles something and snuggles into the covers.

  I sit on the side of the bed and run a hand over my head. It's still all there; no brain-shaped chunks have come out in the night. I don't know what is going on. Has sex saved me when it should have damned me? That was anything but clinical.

  I pick up my pants, crumpled on the floor nearby, and fish out my phone. The charge is down, but there's a message topmost in the notifications from Cerulean.

  Are you even alive? Call me!!

  There are a few missed calls on Skype too. I chuckle, then plug the phone into the charger and roll smoothly to my feet. He's being dramatic, and eager for gossip. Another half an hour won't kill him. I put on my clothes, socks and shoes, and go to the door.

  Down through the building I emerge into the street. It's quiet at this early hour, and there's a chill in the air; 143rd street near Willis, overlooking the scrubby dry Willis playground, just a few streets over from the Mott Haven historic district. There are cars on the road but none of them are moving, stopped by traffic probably. I duck into my hoodie, tuck my hands in my pockets, and stroll down the sidewalk. My breath makes clouds of steam in the air.

  At any minute I'll wake up. I can't stop thinking it. I focus on my feet. If my feet are still here, it has to be real. Clomp clomp they go, clomping along the sidewalk. The twinges will hit at any minute, I'm sure.

  I round the corner onto Willis, crossing in front of the neighborhood bodega. The lights are on inside, with stacks of Bud Lite in crates in the window, but I don't see anyone come for their morning swig. The awnings are up so they're open, probably in the back getting stock.

  I go by. A shorthaired terrier is shivering tied by the leash to a newspaper box. He looks at me plaintively as I pass. I figure I'll buy an extra croissant and hand it to him. Do dogs like croissants? All this is unreal.

  I reach the coffee shop, a 24-hour Starbucks, and push through the glass door. It's not a patch on Sir Clowdesley inside; there's no stacks of donated threadbare books, no warm feel of a weird little community, it's all so corporate.

  I go to the register and scan the blackboard in back for prices. They usually put the decaffeinated somewhere tricky in the corner, surrounded by swirly chalk effects like they're trying to disguise it. Dare I go with a regular latte, or is that courting disaster?

  I lean on the bar. The barista must be out back checking something too. Only the low whine of an air conditioning unit circulating hot air breaks the stillness. I survey the place; it's empty
too. Not a soul. I see a few haphazard coffees spread around on tables, the nearest one half-drunk.

  This is getting weird.

  "Hello?" I call.

  No answer comes. I walk along the bar, looking for a bell, but there is none. I shout, "Hello" again but nobody answers. Maybe they've all gone out for a bit, maybe a cigarette break, en masse, out the back?

  My heart speeds up. One possibility leaps to mind.

  I exit the coffee shop and jog out into the street. I see it now, where before I was too dizzy to really notice. The few cars have actually stopped, flat in the road and not at the traffic light, some lilted at weird angles like they were haphazardly pulled over. None of them are moving, and there's no one in them. Across the road a BMW with gold hubcaps has gone through the window of 'Billy Ray's' pawnshop. Its taillights flash on and off soullessly.

  Normally this much would set me twingeing hard, but I'm still in the clear. I look all around, studying the unkempt bushes of Willis playground, the windows of studio apartments on the redbrick building's first floor, but there's no sign of anybody.

  Nobody's here.

  My mind races. Could I have slept through some kind of terrorist attack, and everybody has fled? Sweat prickles down my back, and through unconscious habit I start to count back from one hundred, but still no twinges are coming. This has to be a dream, and I don't like it anymore.

  I start to run.

  "Hello!" I shout as I jog south down Willis toward the bridge. "Anybody?"

  I think I see a glimmer of movement behind a curtain on a second story apartment but it's gone. There may be figures in the park, but when I try to focus on them they blur away amongst the trees.

  I blow into the intersection with 142nd panting hard, and see the wreckage of a car accident just round the corner. A blue Chevy saloon is resting at a crazy angle on its roof, its front all dented in, next to a yellow bulldozer in the middle of the road. I reconstruct the impact in my mind, following the sparkling pattern of smashed glass and black skid trails burnt onto the road.

  Smoke gushes up through the car's chassis, and there's a strange scratching sound coming from nearby. I look up and down 142nd, where normally there are people chatting and strolling, reading papers, checking their phones, but now it's empty but for more abandoned cars. They are scattered randomly across the four-lane blacktop, several crashed into each other, some nudged into walls, one punched through the window of the Halal meat place.