Book of the Dead: A Zombie Anthology by Anthony Giangregorio Page A
Authors: Anthony Giangregorio
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great big darkness Out There.
Wel , they had swapped one nightmare for another, Maddie supposed, because then —the last then before the TV (even al the channels the Pulsifers’ satel ite dish could pul in) stopped showing anything but snow—the walking dead folks stopped only biting people if they came too close.
The dead folks started trying to get close.
The dead folks, it seemed, had discovered they liked what they were biting.
Before al the weird things started happening, Maddie discovered she was what her mother had always cal ed “preg,” a curt word that was like the sound you made when you had a throatful of snot and had to rasp some of it up (or at least that was how Maddie had always thought it sounded). She and Jack had moved to Genneseault Island, a nearby island simply cal ed Jenny Island by those who lived there.
She had had one of her agonizing interior debates when she had missed her time of the month twice, and after four sleepless nights she had made a decision… and an appointment with Dr.
McElwain on the mainland. Looking back, she was glad. If she had waited to see if she was going to miss a third period, Jack would not even have had one month of joy… and she would have missed the concerns and little kindnesses he had showered upon her.
Looking back—now that she was coping —her indecision seemed ludicrous, but her deeper heart knew that going to have the test had taken tremendous courage. She had wanted to be sick in the mornings so she could be surer; she had longed for nausea. She made the appointment when Jack was out dragging pots, and she went while he was out, but there was no such thing as sneaking over to the mainland on the ferry. Too many people saw you. Someone would mention casual y to Jack that he or she had seen his wife on The Gul t’other day, and then Jack would want to know who and why and where, and if she’d made a mistake, Jack would look at her like she was a goose.
But it had been true, she was with child (and never mind that word that sounded like someone with a bad cold trying to rake snot off the sides of his throat), and Jack Pace had had exactly twenty-seven days of joy and looking forward before a bad swel had caught him and knocked him over the side of My Lady-Love , the lobster boat he had inherited from his Uncle Mike. Jack could swim, and he had popped to the surface like a cork, Dave Eamons had told her miserably, but just as he did, another heavy swel came, slewing the boat directly into Jack, and although Dave would say no more, Maddie had been born and brought up an island girl, and she knew: could, in fact, hear the hol ow thud as the boat with its treacherous name smashed her husband’s head, leaving blood and hair and bone and brain for the next swel to wash away from the boat’s worn side.
Dressed in a heavy hooded parka and down-fil ed pants and boots, Jack Pace had sunk like a stone. They had buried an empty casket in the little cemetery at the north end of Jenny Island, and the Reverend Peebles (on Jenny you had your choice when it came to religion: you could be a Methodist, or if that didn’t suit you, you could be a Methodist) had presided over this empty coffin, as he had so many others, and at the age of twenty-two Maddie had found herself a widow with an almost half-cooked bun in her oven and no one to tel her where the wheel was, let alone when to put her shoulder to it.
She thought she would go back to Deer Isle, back to her mother, to wait for her time, but she knew her mother was as lost—maybe even more lost—than she was herself, and held off.
“Maddie,” Jack told her again and again, “the only thing you can ever decide on is not to decide.”
Nor was her mother any better. They talked on the phone and Maddie waited and hoped for her mother to tel her to come home, but Mrs. Sul ivan could tel no one over the age of ten anything. “Maybe you ought to come on back over here,” she had said once in a tentative way,
Wel , they had swapped one nightmare for another, Maddie supposed, because then —the last then before the TV (even al the channels the Pulsifers’ satel ite dish could pul in) stopped showing anything but snow—the walking dead folks stopped only biting people if they came too close.
The dead folks started trying to get close.
The dead folks, it seemed, had discovered they liked what they were biting.
Before al the weird things started happening, Maddie discovered she was what her mother had always cal ed “preg,” a curt word that was like the sound you made when you had a throatful of snot and had to rasp some of it up (or at least that was how Maddie had always thought it sounded). She and Jack had moved to Genneseault Island, a nearby island simply cal ed Jenny Island by those who lived there.
She had had one of her agonizing interior debates when she had missed her time of the month twice, and after four sleepless nights she had made a decision… and an appointment with Dr.
McElwain on the mainland. Looking back, she was glad. If she had waited to see if she was going to miss a third period, Jack would not even have had one month of joy… and she would have missed the concerns and little kindnesses he had showered upon her.
Looking back—now that she was coping —her indecision seemed ludicrous, but her deeper heart knew that going to have the test had taken tremendous courage. She had wanted to be sick in the mornings so she could be surer; she had longed for nausea. She made the appointment when Jack was out dragging pots, and she went while he was out, but there was no such thing as sneaking over to the mainland on the ferry. Too many people saw you. Someone would mention casual y to Jack that he or she had seen his wife on The Gul t’other day, and then Jack would want to know who and why and where, and if she’d made a mistake, Jack would look at her like she was a goose.
But it had been true, she was with child (and never mind that word that sounded like someone with a bad cold trying to rake snot off the sides of his throat), and Jack Pace had had exactly twenty-seven days of joy and looking forward before a bad swel had caught him and knocked him over the side of My Lady-Love , the lobster boat he had inherited from his Uncle Mike. Jack could swim, and he had popped to the surface like a cork, Dave Eamons had told her miserably, but just as he did, another heavy swel came, slewing the boat directly into Jack, and although Dave would say no more, Maddie had been born and brought up an island girl, and she knew: could, in fact, hear the hol ow thud as the boat with its treacherous name smashed her husband’s head, leaving blood and hair and bone and brain for the next swel to wash away from the boat’s worn side.
Dressed in a heavy hooded parka and down-fil ed pants and boots, Jack Pace had sunk like a stone. They had buried an empty casket in the little cemetery at the north end of Jenny Island, and the Reverend Peebles (on Jenny you had your choice when it came to religion: you could be a Methodist, or if that didn’t suit you, you could be a Methodist) had presided over this empty coffin, as he had so many others, and at the age of twenty-two Maddie had found herself a widow with an almost half-cooked bun in her oven and no one to tel her where the wheel was, let alone when to put her shoulder to it.
She thought she would go back to Deer Isle, back to her mother, to wait for her time, but she knew her mother was as lost—maybe even more lost—than she was herself, and held off.
“Maddie,” Jack told her again and again, “the only thing you can ever decide on is not to decide.”
Nor was her mother any better. They talked on the phone and Maddie waited and hoped for her mother to tel her to come home, but Mrs. Sul ivan could tel no one over the age of ten anything. “Maybe you ought to come on back over here,” she had said once in a tentative way,
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