The Gods Above

Pranthi shuffled slightly faster than the horde of zombies following her. They were gaining on her. Time to do something before they caught up. She turned and snapped a couple of pictures. The zombie walkers were a decent crop this year. One of the men had a hole through his chest. Pranthi could see another shambling zombie behind him. She took some more pictures, working hard to stay ahead of the mob, but finally gave up. The horde lurched past her, ignoring her and her camera just as the organizers asked them every year. "How about lunch?" a zombie near the back mumbled past ketchup, wax and cheap fake teeth. There was one every year. Pranthi shook her head and shot a few more of the stragglers. The ones at the back didn't have the make-up that would win them a cash prize, but they had the best zombie walk. Most of the crowd were too eager to get to the finish and tuck into the free donuts and coffee to shamble properly. Even in still shots the shamblers' slumped postures looked good. If someone combined make-up and acting effort, it would make for some brilliant photos. She'd photographed at least five zombie walks now. At first they were a fringe thing, but in the past couple of years they'd become big business. Tens of thousands of dollars and mountains of tins of food were raised by these walks. The organizers handed out cards and brochures offering to set up any kind of event desired. Pranthi's photographs were icing on the cake, as more than enough people bought pictures of themselves as the living dead to compensate for the fee she charged for the day. A few more shots from the back and Pranthi headed through the crowd to a coffee shop at the side of the street. The leg braces she wore over her skinny jeans kept people at arm's length. She didn't mind. Talking was the last thing on her mind. What she wanted came in a tall cup with foam and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. She snapped some pictures while waiting in line. A couple of walkers clearly thought the quality of the free coffee was suspect. The barista was a good sport and gave her a wide grin even as she didn't look right at the camera. "Hi, Pranthi," Pat said as she pushed the coffee across the counter. Her name tag read 'Tina'. Pat didn't like people knowing her name. Everyone had their hang-ups. The only concession Pranthi made to her legs was to let Pat carry the coffee to a table for her. She sat in the corner and rubbed her thighs through the gaps in the steel. The braces let her walk, but they hurt like hell. The latte revived her and the ache receded enough for her to pull out her tablet and load the pictures from her cameras. She had a hard time remembering all the fussing she had to do last year to check her shots. She put out offerings regularly, in thanks, for whoever mated Wi-Fi with cameras and made her life easier. They weren't bad, not her best work, but good enough for the organizers. They wanted zombie shots for their publicity work, not art shots. They paid enough to keep Pranthi in lattes and that was all that mattered. "Hey, there." A young woman sat down across from Pranthi and dropped a bag with a clunk on the floor. "You were shooting zombies," she smiled and sipped at her drink. To Pranthi's amazement, she didn't immediately try to crane her neck to see what was on the tablet. Too many people thought what she had on the tablet was public property. She looked closer at the woman. Blood red stains on her fingers suggested she'd worked on at least one zombie's make-up. The bag probably held more gear to repair whatever damage the walk did before the judges chose their favourite. "That would be me," Pranthi waved at the cameras. The other woman laughed and Pranthi's stomach filled with butterflies. Conversations made her nervous. The woman's eyes were the blue of the Indian Ocean, not the mud of her own. Pranthi never knew how to talk to people, especially not beautiful people who should be ignoring her, not smiling like they were old friends. Instead of talking she flipped over the tablet and watched the woman scroll through the pictures. Technically, it was a breach of her agreement with the organizers, but what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. It wasn't as if Pranthi was going sell photos to this woman. "This one is brilliant," the woman held up a shot Pranthi knew the organizers would hate because they couldn't sell it to the zombies. It showed a blurred face in the foreground with a zombie in the mid-ground with a hand outstretched. The camera angle made it look like the hand was on the first person's shoulder. The background faded to a riot of colour. Because this blue-eyed woman liked it, Pranthi loved it too. The woman flipped through a few other shots before she snorted and showed Pranthi the shot of the man with the hole through him. "This one," the woman made a face and Pranthi laughed. "I designed and built that for him. It took weeks to get the programming right. Anyone can tape two tablets and sync the cameras. I set it up so occasionally blood spurts across the wound. How does he thank me? He asks me to make up his new girlfriend so they can enter the pairs contest." "And you did?" Pranthi asked. "Yeah, I did." The woman sipped at her drink and went back to aimlessly flipping through pictures, but now she barely looked at them. "Couldn't make them more like zombies without killing them." "Some people are hard to refuse," Pranthi said to break the silence. It was that or ask for her tablet back. "Spoken like the voice of experience." "Yeah, except with me it is family," Pranthi sipped her latte and tried to stop her tongue. Not b****y likely. "I live on my own so it is harder for them to try to find me a husband." "I'm guessing the idea of a husband doesn't thrill you." Her words came out dry and bitter as she slid the tablet back to Pranthi. "I'm already married to my camera."