Named

         Her short, disheveled red hair stuck out in places, careful pincurls now ruined, framing a perfect face with wide, staring eyes at the jungle I brought into being all around her. Flawless. Her Naming took me less than a moment. Julia. The second the thought crossed my mind, the picture in my hand went up in flames as a brown hand seized the arm of her torn and dirty white blouse. One sharp tug separated her from it as other hands relieved her of the rest of her clothing, including her real nylon stockings with the black seam up the back. For the natives, food doesn’t need a wrapper.

         She was conscious throughout the ceremony, as the holy man, painted and prepared fully for his congress with the spirits, made her likewise acceptable. My Julia pleaded with them as they bound her hands and made her to kneel before the idols in the likenesses of the village ancestors. She cried so prettily. The natives were mercifully quick. With one sure stroke the holy man drew his knife across her sweet neck and spilled her blood for his ancestors. They would drink deeply tonight, and the people would be fed.

*************

         My yellow eyes flash golden in the window of McGafferty’s Five and Dime as I stop to consider. I have the picture of a man whose name I don’t know. It’s not that I’ve forgotten, but that I haven’t yet decided. Mine is Reglos, but that makes no matter at present. I do not need a Naming.

         There he stands, green corduroy jacket flapping open in the chill wind, a shotgun leaned on his left shoulder. I can see jaded fear in his middle-aged eyes, lined more than his thirty-five years can account for. His nose is crooked, broken at some point. Perhaps he played football in his youth. If so, the musculature he once had is now mostly gone. The sandy brown hair that still covers most of his scalp is unkempt, he has been sleeping on the ground-- and that not much-- as the dark circles under his eyes can attest. He is tired and wary. I can see all of this, yet I don’t know his name.

         If I did, he could begin his walk down the dirt road lined by wet, leafless trees. He could look over his right shoulder and scan the woods for tell-tale movements in the dead, brown underbrush. If I could Name him, the zombies could begin their mindless hunt. His life could begin to end.

I shake my head and close the picture into my worn briefcase. There will be another time for him, I think, and pause, remembering.          “Julia,” I whisper. My most perfect creation yet. What the natives had done with her only moments after her Naming had been most interesting, and her comportment was spectacular throughout. Not a scream from her, not one. For them, the ritual sacrifice was quite commonplace, but I was enraptured with my Julia’s performance-- however brief. I think I will keep her.

         I take a deep breath of the fresh, turn-of-the-century air—unpolluted by industrialism as of yet—and straighten my brown suit, so stylish with its long tails. I admire for a moment the points of my ears and the fine, sharp points of my teeth in the window, making ghastly faces and tittering my amusement. The patrons inside see none of this. They see a well-dressed gentleman admiring shop wares. I titter again to myself at the thought of being a proper gentleman and wave at a child across the cobbled street. At that moment, my particles reassemble themselves into a cloud of smoke. The child begins to cry. I move on. Maybe I’ll call him George.

**************

         Dead, rotting, fetid. The stink of the zombies reaches me before their moans. They are relentless, but mercifully stupid. A rabbit startled by their clumsy shuffling through the undergrowth distracts them for the precious seconds I need to get out of range. It’s been three days since the last bit of rest I’ve had, and it is beginning to show. One nearly got a hold of me when I was resting against that log. I didn’t even hear it approach, I must have dozed off. I am so tired.

         I can smell them, and now I can hear them, four, by the sound of it. I pick up my Remington and start to climb the tree I’ve been leaning against. The bark is rough under my hands. I’ve scraped my palms falling over hidden obstacle with zombies in pursuit, and my hands hurt as I pull myself up. It’s a sturdy maple, not yet very old, but with lots of branches for climbing. If it weren’t winter now, I’m sure it would also have lots of useful leaves to provide me cover. As it is, I climb to the highest branch I can reach. I’m not particularly high in the air, but I wouldn’t be able to reach myself from the ground. It will have to do. I check my pockets for the last of my ammunition. Shit. All I have left is what is in the gun. Two days ago, I was nearly eaten by a swarm of seven of them. I escaped only because of three lucky head-shots. I think I managed to blow the kneecaps off of another. I doubt I will be able to pull off anything like that in my present state.

         I am nearly as hungry as the creatures hunting me by now. Even if this weren’t the dead of winter, I wouldn’t know which berry to eat, and I have no desire to waste my precious ammunition for hunting. I pluck a thin twig from the branch I am sitting on and, with the vague notion that because maple syrup comes from these trees, it might be edible, I put the end in my mouth and chew. It is about as satisfying as a toothpick, but I keep it in an effort to distract my stomach from devouring me from the inside out. It doesn’t seem poisonous, and I think I prefer death by twig to being eaten alive by my own organs.

         I can see the zombies now. I was right, or nearly right, at any rate. There are only three, but the third zombie is big enough to account for another. He must have been a football player, maybe a lineman, during his life.
         I watch, helpless as they shamble toward my pitiful refuge. It is too late to attempt another escape, not now that I am so weak. Fatigue and hunger have taken their toll. My legs are half-frozen in my Levi’s anyway, and I can barely feel my fingers.  I wonder for the millionth time how I got here, and why I dressed myself so inexpertly for the cold. I can’t remember anything before three days ago, when I found myself on a deserted road through a bleak forest. The cold bite in the air tells me it is late autumn. I thought I heard someone, a man, whisper my name, George, before I looked over my shoulder and began walking. Shortly after, I heard the first zombie.
         Moaning below me nearly startles me out of the tree, and I nearly lose the shotgun when I see how close the big one is. He is huge, bigger than I thought from a distance. His head nearly brushes the branch I am sitting on. He is big, and he is Ugly- not a fresh zombie, although the cold has probably spared his some decay. His idiotic focus on climbing the trunk is the only reason I am still alive. Shaking, my numb fingers work to release the safety and cock the gun. I nearly drop it again in the process, and unload three cartridges into his torso before remembering that it would do no good. I cock the gun again and attempt to draw a bead on his head. “It shouldn’t be this difficult at point-blank range,” I mutter aloud and take a deep breath. He hasn’t seemed to notice being shot yet, I think as he swings his grotesque face to look at me. Not thinking, I pull the trigger. I have time to see that the bullet caught him in the shoulder blade before I cock the gun and pull the trigger again.
         Nothing happens. I pull the trigger six or seven more times before the realization that I’m out hits me. When it does, I turn the gun around and swing it as hard as I can at Big Ugly’s face. He takes the impact, losing one eye in the process, but doesn’t seem to care. One huge, rotted hand reaches for me and grabs the thing closest to him. At this point, that’s my head.

*************

         The zombie grabs George and drags him to the ground, where, covered in wet leaves, he is devoured. I didn’t expect it to take this long. I would have given George a day, perhaps two. Four days was quite an achievement. Of course, it inevitably ended in the zombie’s favor. It always does. Zombies are the definition of inevitability. I titter to myself at my witticism. Julia, sitting beside me on the bench at the train station, raises her beautiful eyes from her study of the highly polished wooden arm rest questioningly. “It’s nothing my dear,” I put my hand on her cheek and turn her head up toward mine, “Nothing to worry your pretty head over.” I straighten my top hat and smile at her, showing my teeth. “Come dear, off we go.” She takes my hand and we are gone in a puff of smoke.