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the beauty of the
sunset, groaned and shuffled, hundreds strong, teeming over the streets and in
and out of houses like drugged ants.
    With a grunt and a heave, he
tossed Bill so he landed on the railing.  Jeff held him there for a moment,
catching his breath.  Bill’s head had poked free from his wrapping and the sock
had fallen from his mouth.  He looked at Jeff, moaning louder now.
    Over the railing, Bill’s moans
were joined by others, gathering at the foot of the property, attracted by all
the commotion, a chorus of the dead singing its song of lust. 
    “What are you doing?” Jenny asked
from behind him.
    Startled, Jeff flinched, and when
he did, he shoved Bill’s body over the railing.  It fell and landed with a wet
smack.
    Jenny screamed.  She ran to the
rail and looked over, Bill’s naked body on the ground, free of the sheet,
staring back up at her with his blank eyes.  
    She whirled, her face red and
fierce and covered in tears. 
    “What did you do?” she screamed. 
“What did you do?”
Jeff tried to speak but he couldn’t.  Jenny snarled and pummeled his chest
with balled-up fists, beating him back towards the bedroom, past the bed, and
into the hallway.  She kept shouting at him, “What did you do?” until he was
into the living room.  She turned and stormed into her room and slammed the
door shut, leaving Jeff alone, the dead outside, scratching on the door.
     
    After a couple of hours, he gave
up.  She wouldn’t come from her room and she wouldn’t answer him.  She’d locked
the door and all he could hear was the sounds of her sobbing from inside.  So
he quit trying and went into the kitchen.
    He chewed a couple of the
hamburger patties she’d cooked, not really hungry, but doing it to have
something to do.  Outside the door and the window, the dead were still there,
still clawing away, trying to get in. 
    Jeff went to the door and looked
out, hoping their activity would take his mind off of what he’d done.  He’d
made a bad decision.  He’d hurt Jenny and he wished he could take it all back. 
But what was done was done and there was nothing he could do.  It was like with
his father and mother, when---
    He pushed those thoughts away. 
This was not the time or place.
    He watched as the zombie boy from
earlier was pushed back by the sheer numbers of the dead—now there were about twenty
of them out there—and into the railing.  The zombies squeezed in and the rail
broke, the zombie boy tumbling over the side followed by about six others. 
They fell into the courtyard, down to the pool and the lounge area.  He kept
watch for a few moments as the living dead shuffled around, some falling,
others staying on the walkway.  When he tired of this he shambled over to the
couch and lay down. 
    He closed his eyes and sleep came
fast and hard and black.
     
    He woke in the middle of the night
to the sound of Jenny scrubbing down the bathtub.  She was muttering to
herself, cursing him and cursing God and weeping.  The scent of bleach burned
his nose as Jeff cried, too.  He lay there for a long time, listening to her
and to the dead, still at the door, scrabbling away.
    Eventually, he fell back asleep. 
     
    When he opened his eyes again, it
was nearly noon and he’d slept a lot longer than he’d intended.  Jenny was
sitting by the couch, leaning against it, her arm propped up under her head as
she slept.  He stared at her for a moment, looking at her long black hair and
her soft face, still splotchy from crying so much.  She was so beautiful.  Jeff
wished that he hadn’t met her like this, in these circumstances.  He wished the
world hadn’t fallen into a crack of Hell itself.  He laid there and wished a
lot of things, and when none of them came true, he decided to listen to his
bladder and got up.
    He was careful not to stir her. 
There was no telling how much sleep she’d gotten or hadn’t, so he slid over the
arm rest of the couch and softly walked to the