One: The Morning After
The sun rose against a slick ball on the bedroom floor, beige carpet left over from a client's remodel. Mr. Ball Legs had sat there for the past few hours. Was it watching them with its body covered with eyes? That used to creep out Joel, but now it didn't. It was cute. But not nearly as cute as the new ball next to it: Mrs. Ball Legs. Joel couldn't say what the attraction was. Objectively, it looked like an MS Paint rendering of a tarantula. Yet he wanted to watch it, protect it as if it were his own child. Having sex in the same room with it seemed slightly dirty. But only slightly.
"Joel, you ready for round two?" Sheila asked, pushing back part of a broken headboard. Her hair was so messy, some of the extensions had come out.
"It's more than round two," Joel responded.
The night hadn't been entirely that. Gallons of vomit were buried in the back yard while a trashcan soaked in bleach. One more syringe of serum had been used. But other than that, the night was mostly that.
The alarm clock rang.
"Shit, we forgot to sleep!" Sheila said, laughing.
"I thought you don't need sleep. I wake up and you've already been chasing coyotes for hours."
"Come on, I need at least a couple hours sleep." Sheila brushed his bare shoulder. "And so do you."
"Yeah..." Joel sighed. "It's not just you anymore. It's... it was always me. The moment I decided we fuck up shit together, it was me." He chuckled. "I thought I'd feel different."
Two: Bananas
Joel took a banana from the kitchen counter, opened it, ate it and spat it out. "Blech!" he exclaimed as he threw it in the trash. "These were good yesterday."
"They still are," Abby said as she took a bite of her own.
Joel jumped and turned around. "You!"
"Yes, me."
Abby frowned at her father. "Are you okay?"
"Sure. I, uh, I look okay don't I?"
Abby further furrowed her brow. Joel seemed on edge, but that had become his default state since Sheila undied. Could be a missing corpse, could be another nervous breakdown, could just be a difficult client. As he withered under her stare, Abby concluded that if she asked what was going on, he wouldn't give her a straight answer. So she said, "Yeah, you look fine. Hey, can you drive me and Eric to school? Lisa's car broke down so she has to take Dan's and she already left..."
At the mention of Dan, Joel thought, 'The first kill was mine. How did I do that? Was I somehow already infected then? Or did I do it on moral grounds, so I couldn't look down on Sheila? Did I look down on her? Am I looking down on myself...?'
"I'll drive you," Sheila said. "I have to do a couple of errands anyway."
"If that includes Rite Aid, could you pick up some maxi-pads? The thin ones, please. I had to use one of yours this morning, it feels like a pillow."
"That's cotton, it's supposed to feel like that," Sheila said. "I've been using those since I was your age. Not as regularly now, though. Pre-menopause, the doctor said."
"When did he say that?" Abby asked.
"A few months ago, maybe."
"So not within the last month."
"No, I suppose not." A thought spread across Sheila's face. "You know, I should have had my period by now. Do you think all the stress we've had this month delayed it?"
"You bleed black goo now, Mom."
"You think that affected my cycle?"
The doorbell rang. Abby crossed the living room to answer. It was Eric.
"So can your parents give us a ride?" he asked.
"Yeah." Then Abby lowered her voice. "Does my dad look weird to you right now?"
Eric looked over her shoulder, accidentally caught Joel's eye, and waved to him. He shrugged at Abby. "On the verge of a nervous breakdown, but when isn't he?"
"I think my parents screwed up and are hiding something."
"Aren't they always?"
Three: Mr. and Mrs. Ball Legs
"I'm sorry I have to do this to you," Sheila said in a baby voice as she closed the aquarium of Mr. and Mrs. Ball Legs. "But you can't be under the same roof as Abby anymore, not after last night. No you can't! No, you, can't!"
"Are you sure we should put them in this shed?" Joel asked, leaning on the freezer full of dead nurse. "It's kind of empty. The other one, there's stuff to look at, our old stereo..."
"Too many hiding spots."
Joel indicated the transparent plastic tarp lining the shed's interior. "You think they could get through this?"
"We'll see it. The only blind spots are around this freezer." Which Sheila then extracted a frozen foot from.
As Joel chewed on it, he thought of that time he went to McDonald's after watching a PETA video. This was the same mental compartmentalization.
"You're right," Joel conceded between bites. "Abby has no reason to come in here."
"You were really evasive with her this morning."
"I was human with her. It was nice. Does that make sense?"
"We're still a family," Sheila reminded him.
"But this zombie thing is getting out of hand. Too many zombies, too many victims, this is how the apocalypse happens. And it's all our fault!"
"Honey, that's what the Knights of Serbia are for."
"How effective can they be if they'd take me as a member?"
Four: The Id
Sheila was in the basement with a rotted head on a vase discussing business. Abby was studying with a friend. No family dinner tonight, which was fortunate. Joel knew he would have to confront the issue eventually, but not tonight.
Joel realized this was one way his personality had changed. Before Sheila bit him, he would have worried about facing his daughter and admitting that two thirds of their household was officially a cluster bunch. And this prospect would have kept him nervous and yelling every other word until it came to pass.
But now the future didn't bother him. He was fed and hadn't thought too hard about that. He was warm and content. Everything was right with the world. Only the moment mattered and the moment was pretty awesome. Joel wasn't even high and he felt more at ease than he had in years.
His doorbell rang. It was Lisa.
"Hey, I think I left my casserole dish at your party yesterday," Lisa said. "Did you see it?"
Joel took her inside. "Sheila gathered all the dishware here," he said as he indicated the kitchen counter. "Any of that look familiar?"
Lisa bent over to reach a buried dish. As she did so, Joel admired the line where her glutes met her hamstrings. There was a distinct pop of muscle there.
"Have you been doing CrossFit?" Joel asked.
"Yeah, can you tell? Squats every day. I've been trying to get Sheila into it, but she'd rather go run in the desert lately."
"She's doing her own thing, that's for sure," Joel commented as he followed Lisa to the door. And past the door. She really had a great ass.
"Joel?"
"I'm sorry, I was just admiring your ass." The filter between Joel's brain and mouth had apparently been severed.
"I knew it!" Lisa exclaimed. "Sheila goes on about 'living your best life,' of course it's a dead bedroom and she's having an affair. No one's marriage is that good."
Joel didn't contradict her. Not on his porch. Not on his lawn. Not on her bed.
Five: The Girl Next Door
Eric peered into his computer screen, ears perked for the sound effects of a video game. Shuffle to the right. Was that a shadow? No, only his character from a new light mounted to the wall. Go forward...
"Oh! Oh...!" Lisa exclaimed from her bedroom across the hall.
"Oh, fuck," Eric muttered as he adjusted his headphones. Too loud and the game would be too easy. Too quiet and he'd hear how easy his mom was.
The game became slightly louder, but so did Lisa.
"Ooo, I didn't know you were into that! Down there, yeah, that's the spot. Not too - okay, I'm not nearly as rough as she is. Back off a little bit. No, not totally, come back! Yeah, right there. Yup, yup..."
Eric gave up on his game; occasional sound effects wouldn't cover this up. He opened Spotify and found a playlist he'd made specifically to cancel out that kind of noise. Ensconced in his aural isolation chamber, he turned to reddit: /r/paranormal/ had nothing new and /r/losangeles/ wasn't much better.
Then he felt a thump. Taking off his headphones, he heard laughing. Male laughing. The gentleman caller must have tripped over that little bench at the foot of her bed.
The laugh gave Eric pause. Usually that thump was followed by an exclamation of pain. Even if the gentleman caller laughed it off eventually, that laugh rose from a fading ouch. After a few moments of thought, Eric reasoned that this ouch must have happened while his headphones were still on.
"Are you okay?" Lisa asked.
"I'm fine," her gentleman caller responded, still laughing.
Eric gasped as he recognized Joel's voice. Opening his door by less than an inch, he watched Joel walk away from Lisa's bedroom.
Then Eric tiptoed back to his desk and put his headphones back on. No music. No tabs open. He just needed to think.
Six: Understood
Hours later, a crash woke Eric in the middle of the night. Followed by Joel's "whoops!"
Eric put on a bathrobe and softly walked down to the kitchen window, through which he observed Joel doing yardwork next door. At - Eric squinted back at the microwave - 4 a.m.
He was used to seeing some lights on inside that house at odd hours, but that was because of Sheila. Had she woken Joel? Or had he simply slipped into her schedule? Had Joel ever needed that much sleep?
Eric quietly slid open the glass door and stepped into his backyard, inhaling the crisp night air.
"Hey," Joel said, waving. "Can't sleep?"
Eric shrugged as he approached the fence. "Can you?"
"Eh. I got up an hour ago. Feel fine, lots of energy actually. So I thought I'd do some yardwork." Joel chuckled. "Can't believe I dropped that ho."
"What?!"
Joel lifted his gardening tool. "This hoe has an awkward handle."
Eric caught his breath. He realized this might be the best opportunity to speak his mind, when the atmosphere was relaxed and there was no one else around. So he braced himself and said, "I know what you did."
Joel frowned and tensed up. "How could you tell?"
"How could I not? I'm not far from what's going on."
"Eric, you're just a kid. It's... it's complicated."
"You think I wouldn't understand? I've seen this before."
"I know, and that's not fair to you, is it?"
Eric looked at Joel and tried to remember the last time he assumed the adults in his life knew what they were doing. Aloud, Eric asked, "Does Abby know?"
Joel shook his head and said, "Don't tell her, okay?"
"Okay, but you know it's going to come out eventually. Does Sheila know?"
"Of course! It was her idea."
"Oh..." Eric said, relaxing. The Hammonds were still married and everything was under control. Nothing to see here.
Seven: Girl Talk
As Joel came down the stairs, he saw Sheila chatting with the woman who lived next to the other side of their house.
"You have to see my pelvic floor therapist," Alondra said. "I was so - loose! - after the baby was born, it was embarrassing. But now I'm tighter than ever. And the sex is amazing."
"Is that like Tantric?" Sheila responded. "Because we've tried that."
"Not quite."
As the women talked, Joel wondered if medical advice was even relevant to Sheila anymore. Though he usually tuned out conversations like this, he found it interesting today. Not the words, but Sheila's actions, Sheila's act. Something had technically killed her, but her socialization was so ingrained that she carried on regardless, like a chicken missing its head.
Joel wondered if his socialization was as strong. He didn't care about real estate as much as Sheila did, had only done it because she was doing it. He was surprised to notice that his personality hadn't changed as much as he'd seen in others. Perhaps he was already uninhibited?
As Joel mentally reviewed his recent behavior, he concluded that the only unusual thing he'd done was Lisa. Though the idea had occurred to him the moment they became neighbors, he'd never seriously considered doing it until he did it. One inhibition gone. Thank goodness this zombie shit wasn't an STD. Or had Eric just gotten lucky with Ramona?
Joel had thought if he ever cheated on Sheila, he'd be wracked by guilt, confess to Sheila, and their marriage would be finished. But he couldn't find an ounce of regret within himself. Unless Lisa blabbed, Sheila would never know.
The doorbell rang. It was Rick with a fussy infant in his arms. He looked over Joel's shoulder and yelled, "Alondra, the baby is hungry. Should I give him the bottle?"
"Oh no, baby needs momma boob," Alondra said as she took the infant and walked back to her house.
Rick awkwardly hung back on the porch. Then it hit Joel: guilt. Not for anything he'd done since turning, but for shutting out Rick from the truth of the zombie apocalypse. Rick who was legally obligated to arrest murderers, but that warning voice in Joel's head was barely audible.
Joel nodded in the direction of Alondra and said, "Well, it's nice that she got John Legend out of her system."
"One local show, one weekend trip to San Francisco, and she got bored," Rick said. "I knew she would. You get a crazy idea like that, doesn't take long to see the downside."
Joel realized he wanted Rick to keep talking, to sit down with him like old times, old times being less than two weeks ago. He asked, "Want to have a smoke?"
Eight: Insufferable
Meanwhile, Eric and Abby drove to school.
Still gazing out the passenger window, Abby repeated her question from yesterday morning. "You think my dad is acting weird lately?"
Eric froze.
"Hey, red light!" Abby exclaimed.
Eric slammed the brakes in the middle of the crosswalk. Fortunately, no one was on it. But there was a car behind him. Unable to back up, his car sat in embarrassment until the light turned. Eric positioned his hands at ten and two, eyes on the road like during his driver's test.
"What the hell is going on with everyone around me?" Abby muttered. "First he's nervous, now you."
Eric took the first parking space he saw near the high school, despite its distance from the building. He couldn't focus on driving a moment longer than necessary. Abby had rattled him. He waited for her to unbuckle her seat belt. Instead, she turned to him.
"Are you okay?" Abby asked.
"I'm as good as ever," Eric responded, an octave or two higher than usual.
"You're an awful liar."
Eric undid his seat belt so he could breathe. Joel's secret burst at his seams. He'd made a promise but knew he couldn't keep it.
"Out with it," Abby prodded.
"Your dad fucked my mom last night."
"Holy shit!" Abby exclaimed. "How could he do that? Wait until Mom finds out."
"It was your mom's idea!"
Abby paused. Then she smirked. "You know, the last time I borrowed my mom's laptop, it accidentally restored a tab to Tinder. My parents joined it as a couple and looked for a unicorn."
"A unicorn?"
"A bisexual woman to join them in a threesome. Which is my mom's idea of an anniversary gift."
"Was this before or after she after became a zombie?" Eric asked.
"Before," Abby said. "It's always the shy ones. And now my parents are swinging..." She let out a long sigh. "Fuck my life, they're going to be insufferable about this. They'll talk everyone's ear off about it. It'll be worse than when Mom discovered Tantric sex."
Nine: A Whey Out
"I wish you hadn't told me this," Rick said. "I should arrest you for murder, but half of them were white supremacists and one of them was Dan."
"Then don't!" Joel suggested. "Anne didn't. She used Sheila for good."
"But you're going to run out of bad people eventually. This may have been fun for a month, but it's not sustainable."
"I hadn't thought of that," Joel admitted. He picked up a used joint, sniffed it, and put it down. "And I'm still not high. This zombie thing is bullshit."
"You know, I'm allergic to red meat," Rick said.
"But I've seen you eat steak."
"That was before I was bitten by a tick while visiting family in Tennessee."
"Ticks can do that?"
"Lone Star ticks can," Rick said. "Anyway, has it occurred to you that maybe you just have a food allergy and a protein deficiency?"
"Do you really think we didn't explore every option before resorting to murder?"
"Yes."
"So what did I miss?"
"Humor me," Rick said. He found a BlenderBottle, put in a scoop of soy protein, poured in some water, and shook it until the consistency was smooth. "Try this."
Joel sniffed it. It wasn't offensive. He sipped it. Still not offensive. So he took a gulp. The flavor wasn't much, but the texture was okay. And it filled his stomach.
Joel guzzled the whole bottle. He waited for nausea but it didn't happen. He just felt...full.
Ten: Ethical Slut
"This is like cardboard," Sheila said.
"I think of it more like tofu," Joel responded. "You know, because of the soy. Also, it's vegan. Which is far more ethical than killing people."
"Does that make us vegan now?" Sheila wondered. "Ugh, those people are annoying."
"We're not killing vegans, honey. In fact, we don't have to kill anybody! I'm going to call this a win."
Abby bounced down the stairs and asked, "Dad, what's for dinner?"
"Um, I already ate."
Abby narrowed her eyes. "You never turn down food. But I haven't seen you eat in the last two days."
Sheila turned to Joel and said, "We should tell her."
"I already know you're swinging," Abby said. "Eric told me. Just please don't blab about it like the Tantric thing. You're my parents. It's gross."
"No, I meant that your father is a zombie now."
"Oh!" Abby exclaimed. "Shit, is it contagious?!"
"It was an accident with Mr. Ball Legs," Sheila explained. "But we took it out of the house so it can't get to you. We made sure of that."
"And the better news is, I just discovered we can eat human flesh or soy protein!" Joel added. "And guess which one Costco has on sale this week."
"Seriously? You don't have to kill people anymore?"
"No, it's over now." Sheila said. "And why did you think we were swinging?"
"Because Eric said that Dad..." Abby's voice withered as she saw Joel start to panic. She realized that Eric might have been mistaken about some key points. "You know what? Dad's put up with your zombie bullshit for the last month. Now it's your turn."
End