Zombie, Illinois by Scott Kenemore

bolts. Success.
    â€œHot damn!” says the man.
    â€œThat should do it,” I say, pleased with the result.
    The man grips the tire and easily lifts it off the car. He sets it on the ground next to the nuts and bolts.
    â€œI appreciate this, friend,” he says. “Look, can I give you a couple of dollars?”
    Here I had been afraid this was going to be a swindle, and now the guy is offering me money. Man, I am some kind of fuck.
    â€œNo,” I tell him, privately embarrassed. “This was my good deed for the day.”
    â€œWell then,” he says, extending his glove to me. “Thank you.”
    We shake hands, and he begins to replace the tire.
    A few minutes later, I am upstairs at my desk with a cup of hot chocolate and a browser window containing Google Image results for “Strawberry Brite Vagina Dentata drummer.” The results look pretty good.
    I hear the car outside slowly pull away.
    And that’s when I realize I have forgotten to bring the sledgehammer back up with me.
    Fuck. Back into the cold once more.
    Reluctantly, I leave the appealing search results behind and put my coat on. I trudge down the stairs and walk back outside into the winter chill.
    The hammer has been thoughtfully propped against an oak next to the sidewalk, a final kindly gesture on the part of the man with the flat.
    I walk over and pick up the hammer. Then I stop dead in my tracks.
    Standing in front of my building is a young woman in a thin yellow dress. She has pleasing features and pale skin with a few freckles. She could be one of my neighbors from the building next door, but I can’t place her face. Though underdressed for the weather, she doesn’t shiver. Her skin is unmarked by goosebumps or windburn.
    She also has what appears to be a baby’s half-eaten arm dangling from her mouth. The front of her dress is covered in blood. (In the first instant, I had mistaken the crimson blotches for an artistic pattern woven in, but when she approaches I see that it’s definitely blood.) She is looking at me. Her eyes are an unnatural milky-white, as if colored by layers of cataract. She takes one shambling step forward, continuing to masticate the arm like a carnival treat on a stick. Her expression is placid and curious.
    â€œIs that a Halloween costume?” I whisper. (I’m afraid to say anything loud. Afraid to alert the universe. Afraid to make it real.
    The young woman takes another shuddering step toward me...then another. She draws nearer, and nearer still. Then the baby arm drops from her mouth and her hands stretch forward as if to strangle me. Her mouth gapes and shows me hideous cruor teeth. Her lips curl into a smile.
    My adrenaline surges. Fight or flight, I wonder?
    Then I remember that I’m holding a sledgehammer.
    Without thinking, I raise the hammer. (I’ve never been a strong guy, but I’m, you know, big. I can knock somebody down when I have to. In this instant of calculation, I feel confident I can take out this waifish woman, especially if I can just get my weight behind the hammer.) At the same time, she lunges forward and tries to scratch my face with her long fingernails.
    I flinch back—reacting without thinking—and send the sixteen-pound hammer careening down into her.
    If I had not flinched, the hammer might have obliterated her head. Instead, it enters her chest up to the handle. There is a moment of resistance when the head of the hammer meets her ribs, but only a moment. It smashes through them and sinks deep inside her chest cavity.
    I am speechless. I release my grip on the cedar handle and take a step back.
    The bloody woman does not fall.
    She does not wince.
    She does not scream.
    Her legs buckle for a moment, adjusting to the weight of the hammer, but then she gains her footing once more, and takes another step toward me, the handle still protruding from her chest.
    That’s when I realize something is very, very