Read The Undead That Saved Christmas Vol. 2 for Free Online Page B

a rabbi walk into a bar - ”
    “This was a mistake,” she said. “Coming here. I’m sorry.”
    She spoke quietly, her voice cracked and hoarse, as though she’d almost forgotten how to use it.
    “I’m going, Kevin.”
    “What? No.”
    He took a step toward her, but stopped when the smell hit him.
    He tried not to let his surprise and his disgust show on his face, though it probably did anyway.
    “Please, Mindy, don’t. It’s Christmas.”
    She didn’t answer. But she didn’t turn to leave either.
    “I’ve got some food. Are you hungry?”
    She nodded immediately.
    He went into the little kitchenette and slid a cube of Spam out of a can. He cut it into four big slices, then handed her the plate.
    “I’m sorry I don’t have - ”
    Mindy snatched it from his hands.
    She ate with her fingers, jamming the meat into her mouth, barely chewing. Several times she nearly choked. Bits and pieces fell from the corners of her mouth.
    She stopped eating only once, long enough to look at him over her plate.
    “Don’t look at me while I eat,” she said, her words about as close to a snarl as any he’d ever heard a girl make. And then, more quietly: “Please. Don’t look at me.”
    He nodded. “Sure. Okay.”
    Kevin went to the cupboards and took down some more cans. He had Vienna sausages, some fruit cocktail, applesauce, a jar of sauerkraut. Better take this stuff out of the can, he thought, remembering the way she’d jammed her fingers into the pile of Spam. Last thing he wanted was for her to cut up her fingers on the sharp edges of the cans.
    He went to work putting the meal onto paper plates and then setting the plates onto the table.
    When he turned around, she was standing right behind him, watching his neck. Seeing her made him jump.
    “Shit,” he said. “You scared me.”
    The look in her bloodshot eyes was inscrutable, and he didn’t like it.
    Her gaze drifted down to the food on the table.
    “Go ahead,” he said. “I have tea and water, whichever you’d prefer.”
    She fell on the food without answering, without bothering to sit in the chair he pulled over for her, so he got her a cup of water and set it down next to her plates.
    She had asked him not to watch her eat, which was okay with Kevin. The wet, slurping noises she made were enough for him to know he didn’t want to watch. He went over to his couch and looked at some of the magazines he’d left there. A bunch of old Playboys he’d found at the used bookstore over by the mall. He gathered them up and hurriedly stuffed them under the couch, but not before catching a glimpse of the sleepy-eyed brunette on the cover of the top magazine. So much had changed, he thought sadly. So much had been lost. The good and the bad.
    Eventually, Mindy’s eating noises stopped.
    Kevin walked over to the kitchen. Mindy was still at the table, looking around at the cupboards with a bovine-like vacuity.
    “Are you still hungry?” he asked. “I have more. You can have anything I have.”
    She shook her head.
    “More water, maybe? I can make you that tea I promised.”
    Again she shook her head.
    A joke about Little Johnny, a bucket of nails and a zombie hooker came to mind, but for once his internal filter was working and he cut it off before it had a chance to get out.
    Instead, he let the silence linger.
    She had turned to face him, and now she was swaying drunkenly, same as she had done in the mall parking lot. It occurred to him that she had probably internalized so much zombie behavior that, even now, when she was completely safe, she was unable to turn it off.
    But the silence was murder. He had never dealt well with uncomfortable silences. It was the main reason he told so many bad jokes. Better to fill up the void with inane nonsense than let a painful silence grow.
    He said, “Listen, there’s no need for you to go back out there. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. I’ve got some Sterno. We could heat up some water, let you take a