The Gods Above

Chapter 2: Zombie Walk, Part 2

The woman put her hand on Pranthi's and warmth travelled up her arm. Touch was scarier than conversation. She froze, but the woman didn't notice.

"Ironic that the modern idea of zombies has nothing to do with science."

"There are zombies in science?"

"Sure," to Pranthi's relief she leaned back again, freeing Pranthi's arm. "A fungus takes over one species of ant and forces it to climb high in the foliage where a certain species of bird eats it and spreads the spores through the forest. A parasite takes over a beetle and makes it go to where the eggs in the beetle are more likely to hatch. Nature is cruel."

"Nasty, for sure," Pranthi said.

"Stay. Look at your pictures, and by the time you get them handed in, it will be all over."

"What?" Pranthi pulled her hand away. "What did you do?" A different heat filled her as she imagined bombs or guns or other horrors shown on the news nightly.

The woman laughed and sipped her drink.

"Nothing so final as you're imagining from the look on your face," she shrugged and looked away, but not before a tear rolled down her cheek. "I worked so hard for him, and he runs after that bimbo. Biology. Nothing I can do about that. So I gave him a parting gift. Let him experience what being a zombie might feel like."

"How can you make him feel like the undead?"

"No," the woman frowned and drank the last of her coffee. "Not undead. Like an ant who will seek the heights and the sun to be consumed. It won't last."

Pranthi's phone rang, breaking the moment.

"What the heck are you doing?" Kevin, the lead organizer, yelled at Pranthi over the phone. "I need you here to shoot the winners."

"My legs got tired," Pranthi said, "I stopped to give them a break."

"Yeah, you have my sympathy, but your contract says you'll shoot the winners and we'll be choosing them in just a few minutes. Where are you? I'll come get you."

"I'm at a coffee shop about halfway through the route." Pranthi slugged back the last of her latte. "I'll wait for you outside."

"If you must go," the woman leaned over and kissed Pranthi on the lips. "Just go ahead and forget me." She crushed her empty cup and stuffed it in her bag before walking out of the coffee shop.

The brief kiss emptied Pranthi's mind and she had no idea how long she would have sat there with her fingers on her lips if her cell phone hadn't rung again. "I'm out front," Kevin said. "Where are you?"

Pranthi swept her tablet into her bag and gave the table a quick glance for loose gear. She hobbled out to the street where Kevin's black Prius blocked traffic. The honking behind him didn't make him move until she'd crawled into the car and closed the door.

"You'll be able to do the rest of the day?" he asked as she buckled her seatbelt. The switch from angry yelling on the phone to concern made her head spin.

"Sure," Pranthi said, "sorry to be a trouble."

"No trouble," Kevin said, "but you know business is business."

"I have shots of everyone on the walk," Pranthi said. "If not individual, at least in groups."

"We may get a stationary booth set up next year for people to get staged shots," Kevin pulled into the field where zombies milled about eating donuts instead of brains. "Then you can concentrate on those art shots you keep trying to sell us."

Pranthi climbed out of the car and checked her gear. The last thing she needed was Kevin returning anything to her apartment. Nice enough the couple of times a year she worked for him, but she didn't need any friends. They got in the way.

Kevin ran to the podium where Amelia, his business partner, waited with a handful of envelopes.

"Okay, then," Kevin said into the PA system, "let's get to the part you've been waiting so patiently for." He pulled the list from his pocket as screaming started off to the side. Pranthi lifted her camera automatically and got a picture of a growing crowd of zombies running toward her.

"Calm down," Kevin said, "the sooner we have quiet, the sooner I can hand out money."

The noise grew louder as the people ran past the stage and past Pranthi. She framed a shot of the hole-right-through-him zombie lurching after people, red dripping from his mouth a brighter color than the stains on his shirt. A blonde zombie lay on the ground behind him with more of that brighter red on her throat and chest.

Red shifted into blood in Pranthi's mind as the spurts from the blonde's neck stopped. By the time she framed the man in her viewfinder, he'd caught a slower member of the fleeing crowd and was gnawing on her neck. Blood flowed and her shrill cries faded until she stopped trying to push the man away. He dropped her to the ground and shuffled on.

Pranthi increased the shutter speed to compensate for her shaking hands. No one stood between Pranthi and the man who had now killed two people, and even with him doing a top-notch zombie walk now, he still moved faster than Pranthi's exhausted legs could. Since she wasn't going to be able to outrun him, she kept shooting pictures as he got closer. Something to distract her from her imminent death.

Blood dripped from his mouth and his eyes had a strange white film on them. Arms and legs moved spastically, as if he were fighting against himself as he walked. His tongue hung out as he got close enough for her to switch to her wide-angle lens. That's when Kevin hit the man from behind with a mic stand. The zombie fell to the ground, twitched once and then lay still.