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Mom caught me sludging out in my bedroom and went shit ape. Like, my privacy meant nothing. She had permers in her hair, like big metal rolling pins, because this month's hairdo was curly-long-curly, and she stormed through my door and kicked her way past all my toys and clothes, mean as acid. She was being so unfabular, and I was totally annoyed with her, but I also felt lucky. Five minutes earlier and she would have caught me doing something mugga private.
 
I decided the best approach was not to flip the tall finger towers, like I wanted, and instead I let her yell herself out. Mom, unlike Dad, wouldn't stay shit ape for long. She was mostly pretty fabular. So I waited. And sure enough, after she gave me the clean-this-room-Gary-we're not-your-maids speech, followed closely by the you're-22-Gary-when-are-you-getting-a-job speech, she found my bed, sat next to my feet, and said in a calmer, more motherly tone, "And you haven't played with your zombie hardly at all. Do you know how much that thing cost your father and me?"
 
"No," I said. "How much?"
 
I was being sarcastic, but she answered anyway. "We're still paying the family. We'll be paying for the next twenty years. Until we're eighty-five, probably. There was the operation, and the zombie contract, and the…"

"Okay, okay. No sense buttering it into the ground."
 
"You could have had thirty servants, slaving night and day. But no, not you. You gotta have a zombie. Gary Pronti has to have every new fandangle that comes along."
 
"Zombies aren't new," I told her. "They've been around forever. Just because you and Dad have to wait for half-off sales…"
 
She did this thing with her lips, like she just ate a rotten papaya, and she looked off toward the Sirius. "That zombie gives me the winkles."
 
"He's boring, Mom," I said. "I can't play with him. He doesn't do anything except sit there and drool on himself."
 
"What did you think he would do?"
 
"I don't know. Juggle, maybe. Or ride one of those little tricycles. Something. But he won't even touch that action pack we bought. And getting him dressed into one of those costumes is mugga hard. And then he doesn't do anything once he's dressed."
 
"Well, that's the price you pay for having a zombie. He won't leave you, or rebel, or form a union, but he's not going to compose poetry either." She fumbled with a drooping permer. "Hmm. Let's see," she went on. "Maybe if you joined a club. Don't they have them? Zombie clubs. Oh yes, I see ads for them all the time."
 
"I don't like clubs, Mom. They're always doing stuff."
 
"Well, maybe one zombie. You know, find the zombie a companion, see how they interface. You can probably find something on the net."
 
"That's a fabular idea! Thanks Mom."
 
I was so, so excited. My mind was racing a meter a minute. Imagine all the possibilities if there were two zombies. I wondered, What would my zombie do in this situation? What would he do in that situation? This was like an instant cure for the sludge. My zombie needed another zombie. I needed another zombie. Why hadn't I thought of it myself?
 
I jumped out of bed, threw on my Dismembers Only shirt (the real kind, with the sleeves missing) and headed for the door. It was—I have to admit—slow going. When I successfully cleared the last hurdle, I turned and saw Mom was still sitting on the bed. Even with the laser scrapes, she had gotten Rome old these last five years. I should be nicer to her, I thought. "Mom?" I said.
 
She was looking around, as if to choose the best path to the door. "Yes, Gary?"
 
"What does 'compose poetry' mean?"
 
"I don't know," she said. "It's just something Nana used to say."
 

Two and a half hours later I was sitting on the sofa in the zombie room, talking to the house computer, searching the net for the right zombie to match with mine. In the Seattle area alone, you could choose from hundreds of zombie personals. Males seeking males. Males seeking females. Females seeking males. Females seeking females. I wondered why they didn't just match up with each other.
 
Harold—the factory had named my zombie Harold, even though his pre-conversion name had been José —Harold was, as usual, drooling and disinterested. I might have done the search without him, but, since this would involve him too, I figured I'd let him in on the decision. But he was starting to get on my nerves. Already we had read through three or four dozen ads and Harold hadn't yet reacted to any of them.
 
"What do you think of this one?" I said. "'FZ seeks MZ for clean, slobbering fun. Sharing food pellets, simulated moonlit walks, patty cake exercises. You: 20 to 35, potty trained, muscular, no contagious diseases, talker preferred. Me: blonde hair, gray eyes, not too much drool and lovably plump. Speaks seven words.'"
 
I looked at Harold. He had come from the factory potty trained (thank God) and he had no diseases, but he was far from muscular and couldn't speak anything but grunts. Even for a zombie, he was ugly. And not the brightest apple in the greenhouse, either. It kind of pissed me off. Like I knew my parents had been mugga cheap and bought me an inferior zombie.
 
"So, Harold, what do you think? Maybe this one might be out of our orbit."
 
"Ernssss," Harold moaned.
 
I was totally flabbered. In the four months I owned him, Harold had grunted only two or three times. And never in any direction. Now he appeared to be moaning at the pic of the female zombie. It was as if he understood, though that was probably pushing things. I eyed the pic myself. Not too bad. At least she didn't have that unfabular warped smile most zombies get after conversion.
 
In any case, I knew a zombie 'yes' when I heard one. And besides, I was getting tired of sludging around on the net.
 
"Okay," I said. "She's the one."
 
I didn't wait for a thank you. If you wait for thanks from a zombie, you'll wait a long time. I just told the computer my ID code and the necessary information, fudging the facts to make Harold look better than he was. Then, satisfied with the results, I fed Harold some food pellets and loped back to my room for some more private fun.
 

Three days later I received a call on the vidphone. Mom answered, and she got all excited. I didn't normally get calls and never from a girl. The last time was probably in high school. Even after I was ready to pick-up signal, Mom was still sludging around, spying. So I flipped her the tall finger towers, and she shook her head and left the room.
 
The girl was already onscreen. I didn't recognize her, though I wished I did. She was about my age and mugga pretty. I clicked on. "Gary speaking."
 
"Hello. I'm calling about your zombie message."
 
"Oh, right." I was disappointed, though I can't say why. I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe that I had won the sex-for-free lottery. "I forgot all about that."
 
"Are you still interested?"
 
"Yeah."
 
"Mind if I ask you some questions?"
 
"Questions? Are they hard?"
 
"I mean, about your zombie."
 
"Sure, sure. Sorry. Anything."
 
"Is he really six feet tall?"
 
"Give or take," I said. "I'm not good measuring things. Especially using the old measurements."
 
"Oh God. Me neither." She was doing something with her hand. Probably playing a hand-eye game, but my mind supplied different ideas. "So, is he really 'almost drool free'?"
 
Man oh man. What other lies had I said in that message? "Mostly," I answered. "Except, you know, when he's drooling."
 
"Good. That's good. Because my zombie drools a lot. Her name's Agatha, by the way."
 
"Agatha's fabular. My zombie's Harold. And your name is?"
 
"Megan. I go to the university. You go to school?"
 
"No."
 
"You work?"
 
"Give me a break. I'm only 22."
 
We talked nearly an hour, with a couple of breaks so we could play each other a few games of hand-eye. Near the end, we both admitted that maybe our zombies weren't top of the line, but we agreed to let them meet to see if they hit it off. We checked our schedules. I was free all the time, but Megan had school on Tuesdays for three hours and that usually sludged her out until Saturday afternoon.
 
"So Saturday it is," I said.
 
"Fabular," she replied.
 

After three more hours of hand-eye—those games are mugga addictive—I hurried to the zombie room to give Harold the good word. I expected him to be sitting on the sofa, like always, staring off into zombie Lala Land. Instead I found him faced against the wall and pounding his head against the newbrick.
 
I had never seen Harold act this way, and I didn't think it was normal. Even for a zombie. I tried talking to him, to make him stop. But he wouldn't. Harold pumped his face into the wall, sending a bongo beat of dull thuds pulsing across the room. It was like his head was made of loose wax.
 
Thump, thump, thump. Thump. Thump. Thump, thump.
 
The newbrick was staining Harold's forehead a dusty blue and one of his eyes was swelling shut. Blood dripped from one nostril, dark crimson, almost black. It pooled on his thick upper lip. A few blood vessels had surfaced on his pale cheeks.
 
I reached for his arm, meaning to lead him toward the sofa, but Harold threw an elbow with mugga force and caught me under the chin, flush, and knocked me across the room. I dropped to one knee, my breath suddenly labored. I muttered curses. I didn't believe this was happening. It was never like this in the XombieCorp commercials. In those, you and your zombie are running on a long stretch of beach, not far from the waves, the sun just starting to rise. You're pulling a large kite and laughing. Your zombie is keeping up and smiling and grunting nearly articulate encouragement.
 
I slowly regained my footing. When I trudged toward him this time, I kept out of arm's reach. Then I kicked at his legs. I wasn't angry. Not shit ape angry, anyway. I just couldn't think what else to do.
 
I kicked and kicked, and I missed every time. When at last my foot connected with his thigh, I fell backwards and landed on the floor again. I immediately jumped back up. I tried kicking again, but the more I kicked the more Harold pounded his skull against the newbrick.
 
I might still be kicking today if Dad hadn't hustled into the room.
 
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Dad yelled. "What the hell are you doing?"
 
"He hit me," I yelled back, still kicking. "He's malfunctioning. You bought me a defective zombie."
 
"Quit it, Gary." Dad jerked me away. "Let me see what's wrong."
 
I let him have at it. I was tired and winded and besides, if anyone could fix Harold, it was Dad. Dad's mugga smart, a genius according to some people. And for two decades, he'd been famous. He invented a procedure that makes tomatoes grow the size of basketballs. You've probably heard of it. It's called the Pronti Procedure. It revolutionized agriculture and, simultaneously, made everyone on the planet sick of diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, mashed tomatoes, boiled tomatoes, fried tomatoes, and all the other tomato dishes that were now everyone's dietary staple.
 
Well, not everyone was sick of tomatoes. About once a month Dad received a letter from some poor person thanking him for her kid's spaghetti dinner. But that was the exception.
 
Dad moved carefully toward my zombie. When he was close enough to touch him, Dad slowly lifted a hand and patted Harold's balding head of hair, soothing him. It kind of pissed me off. Dad was real gentle with everyone but me.
 
"Easy now," he whispered. "Take it easy. What's wrong, fella?"
 
Harold kept thumping his head. Maybe he slowed up, but that was all.
 
Dad turned to me. "He's skinny. When was the last time you fed him?"
 
"I don't know," I said. "Couple of days ago, I guess. I've been busy."
 
"Busy? Busy doing what?"
 
"Hand-eye."
 
Dad shook his head. Then he bit his lip and his face turned all red like it does when he's angry. It made me think of those enormous tomatoes.
 
"You little bastard," Dad said. "He's starving to death. Get some food for this poor wretch." He added, "Defective, my balls. The only one defective around here is you."
 
Totally unfabular. If anyone had a right to be angry, I figured it was me. We could have been mugga rich if Dad hadn't given away the Pronti Procedure. "For the benefit of mankind," he was always saying. Yeah, right. That was a fabular philosophy when your own son didn't have a kit-car or even a decent pair of Flex jeans.
 
The bag of food pellets was in one of the cabinets. 'Pellets' isn't really the right word. They were each about the size and shape of a dog biscuit. I had given one a taste when we first brought Harold home, and it tasted like a dog biscuit too. A dog biscuit made of grass. I shrugged it off. It wasn't like zombies tasted anything.
 
I grabbed the pellets and would have given them to Dad if he hadn't snatched them from my hands. Harold was mugga hungry. He nearly bit off Dad's fingers trying to get at the pellets. Then he ate six before he even slowed down.
 
Watching my zombie eat, I felt bad. Harold was boring and a hassle, but at least he was easy to talk to. And it wasn't like I had crowds of friends. I never meant to deprive Harold of food. I simply forgot.
 
"Dad?" I said.
 
"Shut up, Gary," he said. "Just shut up."
 
Dad waited for Harold to finish with the pellets, then gave Harold some water. A few minutes later he was in the other room yelling at my mother. "He nearly killed that miserable beast," Dad was screaming. "I told you I didn't want that monstrosity in my house. It's an abomination.  And here I am, paying for the privilege. Do you realize what a hypocrite it makes me look like? All my life I've worked to make the lives of poor people better, and now I've got a lobotomized pauper in my home. And the kid won't even treat it humanely. Really, Vila. You spoil him."
 
"He needs to grow up some," Mom said. "You remember how you were at that age."
 
"At his age I had a fucking PhD…"
 
And on, and on. Dad going shit ape was nothing new. And I wasn't worried he'd ground me or do something like that. I never went anywhere anyway, and, besides, before long Dad would be back at the office. He spent all his time there. Most nights he even slept on the cot in his lab. Sometimes it was like Mom and I lived alone.
 
Harold was sitting on the sofa next to me. I looked closely at him, trying to understand what had set Dad off. I didn't get it. If you read the netnews, every day it is overrun with stories about atrocities committed against zombies. Lonely, desperate men using them as sex toys to indulge every fetish. Husbands tricking zombies into murdering their wives. Wives winning their husband's zombies in divorces, then using them as living ashtrays to piss off their ex's. People growing bored with their zombies and tossing them out on the streets, so that they have to be rounded up and put down before they cause traffic accidents. And remember that cannibal case, where he went through something like twenty zombies before the authorities caught on? When you looked at it like that, not feeding my zombie for a couple of days wasn't so bad.
 
Harold didn't look that skinny, not to me. A new stream of drool threaded across his chin. Once again he had that empty, almost content, warped smile. Dad had wiped off most of the blood, but there was still a little.
 
"Ernsss," Harold groaned at nothing.
 
"Fabular news," I told him. "You've got a date."
 

On Friday I had to give Harold a bath. Other than sponging his face once or twice a week, I hadn't bathed my zombie since we bought him and he was starting to smell like a Frenchman. I tried to pawn off the chore on Mom, but she said Harold gave her the winkles fully clothed and there was no way she'd look at him naked. Dad, of course, was out of the question. He hadn't spoken to me since the day he went shit ape.
 
I led Harold into the zombie washroom, then stripped him down. Once he was undressed, I inspected his body for parasites and sores. I started at his neck and worked down. There were stringy patches of black hair curling on his chest, nipples that were purple rather than pink, and a navel that looked like a finger had been pressed into dough. His penis was small, kind of shriveled, and he had no testicles. The people at the factory removed those during conversion. It was supposed to make the zombies less aggressive and prevent them from having children. And that made sense to me. Who in his right mind would want zombies reproducing? I guessed the children would come out normal enough, not all that different from regular human babies, but what would you do with them after they were born? Already the planet was full of poverty-stricken riffraff, mental cases, and unwanted kids. And half the population was starving. That was why people started selling themselves as zombies in the first place. It was the only way they could make sure their families would eat.
 
Finished with the inspection—there were no parasites and only one small bed sore—I folded Harold's dirty clothes and, like it said in the manual, I turned on the water and started hosing down my zombie. Harold didn't like it. He squirmed this way and that, trying to get out of the spray. No matter what I did, or tried to do, he wouldn't turn and face the water. He wouldn't soap himself either. I had to do it for him. The chore was mugga frustrating, more work than I had done in months, and several times I thought about quitting. But I wanted Harold to look good for his date and I wanted to get Dad off my back. Show him that I was capable of taking care of my responsibilities. (Which was why I did it when Dad was home.) Anyway, I kept going.
 
I shut off the hose and started toweling Harold down. He looked like a wet animal, kind of pathetic, a puppy caught outside during a downpour. Beads of water dripped off his ears and off clusters of hair. His whole body glistened. The water had been cold, so he was shivering, and his lips had taken on a slightly mauve color. A smear of newbrick blue still dirtied his forehead, so I reached up with the towel to wipe it off. I was gentle about it because of the swelling above his eye. Harold groaned. Then he closed his eyes, as if this attention was pleasant to him, and that was when he spoke his first word.
 
"Fabular," he said.
 
Well, not exactly 'fabular'. It was more like fubulernsss, a word that dissolved into a grunt. But that was close enough for me.
 
Talk about flabbered. I screamed, "Harold talked! He talked! He talked!" I called out for everyone to come listen. Mom, of course, but Dad too. Like I forgot he was mad at me. Mom barreled into the wash room, chanced a shuddering peek at Harold, and asked me what was wrong.
 
"Nothing, Mom," I said. "He talked. Harold talked!"
 
"Oh, is that all?"
 
"Is that all?"
 
"Well, what did he say?"
 
"'Fabular'," I told her. "Or something like it. Go ahead, Harold. Say it for Mom."
 
We both looked at my zombie. He said nothing. I prodded him a couple more times, but it was useless.
 
"He really talked, Mom. Really."
 
"Big deal," Dad yelled across the house. "A year ago he could speak in full sentences. He could read and write, too. He was probably a college grad."
 
Yeah, okay, I thought. A poor person with a college education. That'll be the day.
 
"Don't let Dad get you down," Mom said in a soft voice so Dad wouldn't hear. "It's great he learned a word. But oh, I can't look at him. I'm getting the winkles real bad."
 
She turned and left.
 
Dad had put a sludge on things, to be sure, but I was still mugga trumped. The manual had said this would happen, that eventually my zombie and I would bond, but I was beginning to think it was a lost cause. But clearly, by saying 'fabular', Harold was paying me a compliment. And if that wasn't bonding, I didn't know what was. The XombieCorp advertisements had been right. It was almost like having a real friend.
 
I dried and dressed Harold, which took forever, then fed him a few extra food pellets and put him in his room. I didn't try to make him talk again. I didn't want to push him. No real friend would.
 

We were all excited Saturday morning about Harold's big date. Well, Mom and I were excited. Dad was at work, and he said not to expect him home all weekend. And Harold didn't get excited unless you withheld his food for awhile.
 
Mom baked fresh tomato cookies and helped me fix up the zombie watching room. The watching room was a small antechamber, off Harold's main living space, a kind of attic with a view. Like one of those balconies medical interns use to look down on surgeries. It was big enough for only two or three people. Provided you had the space, it came standard with the zombie contract. I suppose it was okay, but, after the first week, I hadn't used it at all. There wasn't any point. It was no fun to sit there by myself and watch Harold drool and stare off into orbit. However, now that Harold was going to have company, I thought he might prefer some privacy. Also, it would be fabular to talk to Megan without the zombies intruding.
 
Megan and Agatha were scheduled to come to my house at one, but an hour later they still hadn't arrived. I called Megan's vidphone and didn't reach her, then distracted my growing impatience with a game of hand-eye. Then a dozen more.
 
It was three-fifteen when they showed.
 
Through the window, I saw them pull in. Megan was driving. Nice kit-car, not too old. I had wanted a similar model last year. But in a way, way different color. I wanted iron blue, which was retro and really fabular. Hers was a yellowish pink and that was so last week.
 
Megan stepped out of the car. She looked mugga good in her Flex 3000's and nipple stars. Her hair looked real, not implanted, but it was blood tangerine in color and that had to be fake. Maybe it was just dyed. Agatha was chained to the back seat and it took Megan a long time to unlock her. I was having a hard time seeing, but it was like they were struggling or arguing. I wondered how much of an argument it could be if Agatha only spoke seven words. Maybe one of those words was 'no'.
 
Eventually Megan—now mugga frustrated—stepped back to her trunk, commanded it open, and pulled out an electro-rod. Walking with short, purposeful steps, she returned to the back seat and zapped her zombie about four times. That did the trick. Agatha popped out of that car mugga fast. If she hadn't been drooling too badly before, she was now.
 
I wondered how much one of those electro-rods went for. Well, knowing Dad, it probably came standard, but he told the factory to keep it. Not that I minded too much. I couldn't see myself zapping Harold all the time. Among other things, think of the messes in his pants.
 
"They're here," I yelled to Mom.
 
Mom and I walked out to greet them. We introduced ourselves, awkward with the zombie standing there with the shakes and drooling like Niagra Falls, and then we all went inside. Megan looked about the same as on the videophone. Kind of Asian, with this tinge of northern European. Her complexion was perfect, probably laser-scraped, and her eyes were an old-fashioned (and maybe natural) blue. The only flaw I could see was the way she walked. Her steps were all sludged out. Like she had spent her life walking in sand and picking up her feet was too much effort. I thought, she must go through a pair of shoes every week. But with a kit-car like that, she could probably afford them.
 
Agatha, however, looked nothing like her pic. She was short, way short, only two or three inches above the standard zombie height requirements. And "lovably plump" had been the overstatement of a lifetime. She was so skinny her ribs were showing and her cheeks were sucked ghoulishly into her face. She was wearing only shorts and sandals, neither of which fit too well, and her breasts, naked, drooped down toward her belly like deflated funnels. Also, she totally had that warped-smile look, though she wasn't smiling at the moment. Megan must have caught her at the perfect moment when she snapped that pic. Or maybe she had taken the pic a long time ago. In any case, if Dad saw Agatha, he would have gone mugga shit ape. And I wasn't so pleased myself. It was like I'd been lied to. But then I thought about my less-than-truthful message, and I let it go.
 
"Okay," Mom said, winking at me because Megan was pretty. Mom handed me the bag of cookies. "I'll leave you two alone now. Holler if you need anything."
 
Once Mom was gone, Megan said, "Where to?"
 
"Right this way."
 
I stepped toward the door that led into the zombie room. Megan tried to follow, but Agatha had other ideas. She locked her legs like an over-burdened donkey and wouldn't go another step. She was a lot stronger than you'd ever believe. I was impressed.
 
But Megan wasn't. She was pissed off, probably because the zombie pulled the same thing in the car. Megan had a leash around Agatha's neck—they're called 'chokers' because there's a button on the handle that will choke a zombie into submission—and Megan tugged on the choker a couple of times. When that didn't work, she pressed the button.
 
I was flabbered. Completely. Agatha's eyes almost popped out of her head. Like she had no eyelids. Then her face turned all blue, like this sick shade of nuclear winter sky, and her mouth opened to reveal teeth so rotted they wouldn't be able to chew a hole through Jell-O. Looking at her teeth made me realize I had never brushed Harold's. And it made me want to start.
 
"Listen," I said to Megan. "Do you have to?"
 
"Yes, as a matter of fact I do." She was mad at Agatha but taking it out on me. She cast a disgusted glance my way. "You're not one of those zombie lovers, are you?"
 
"No..." I could see those visions I'd been having all week of Megan and I getting together disappearing. Like, poof.  Like, gone. "Hell, no," I said more firmly. "It's just… It's just she's drooling on our new carpet."
 
"Oh, sorry."
 
"No problem," I said, glad she hadn't noticed the carpet was last year's style. "Is she ready?"
 
"I think so. She better be. I'm mugga tired of her shit."
 
We got Agatha into Harold's room. It wasn't love at first sight, or anything. They didn't even look at each other. Harold stared straight ahead, jaw drooping, drool flowing, his eyes fixed on some star a million light years away. Agatha was still trembling from the electro-rod and the choker. I wanted to put a bucket under her for all the drool. I thought electricity was supposed to dry up spit, but that wasn't the case with Agatha. Maybe her body was used to it.
 
Megan released the choker and sat her zombie on the sofa next to Harold. Then there were two zombies staring off into orbit. I was looking at Harold's teeth. They were sort of yellow, but otherwise they looked okay.
 
"The watching room is over here," I said.
 
We walked toward the door. Along the way, Megan said, "This is a nice house. Lots of room. You guys must be mugga rich."
 
"Nah," I said. "This philanthropist lady willed it to Dad about twelve years ago. Cause Dad invented the Pronti Procedure."
 
"The big tomatoes?"
 
"Yeah. That's my dad. The big tomatoes guy. Let me tell you how unfabular that was in high school. The bullies were always giving me mugga crap about it. I'd go to put on my gym sneakers and they'd be filled with spaghetti sauce."
 
"Really?"
 
"It happened about once a week. It got to be where I knew it was coming and went to gym class in my socks."
 
By now we were sitting in the watching room. The zombies weren't doing anything. They hadn't even moved. If it weren't for the constant streams of drool and Agatha's twitching, it would have been like looking at a pic.
 
I offered Megan a tomato cookie, but she didn't want one. We lapsed into a weird silence. This silence lasted a minute, then another. Then maybe ten or fifteen minutes more. Like we were also zombies, but without the drool.
 
I kept trying to think of something to say, but everything I came up with was stupid. This wasn't unusual for me. I have never been good with people, especially girls my age. It's like I'm fabular enough in my own head, but I can't get any words to my mouth. I guess I'm shy or anxious or something. Mom noticed it, and that was how she convinced Dad to let me have a zombie. Like I could practice my social skills on him and maybe it wouldn't be so hard for me to talk to people.
 
I was still fighting to come up with something to say, when Megan said, "I don't know. I don't want to seem like a witch-bitch, but can you really blame those bullies for picking on you?"
 
"What do you mean?"
 
"I mean my parents say all the Pronti Procedure did was make things worse. Like, poor people got to eat and started having babies and that only made more poor people. So now the whole world's like mugga fucked."
 
"Dad was only trying to help."
 
"Well, duh-duh. He didn't."
 
The bitterness in her voice was cold enough to freeze mercury. This wasn't going as well as I had hoped. The center of me was turning hot. Like some invisible needle had tipped over into the red zone called shit ape. Dad was no angel, not by a stretch, but I wondered what Megan's parents were doing to help cure the ills of the world. And then a darker thought came to mind. What was I doing?
 
I didn't want to pursue that question. Not then, maybe not ever. Instead, I changed the subject.
 
"You go to the university?"
 
"Yeah."
 
Another long pause. "What do you study?"
 
She kind of sighed through her nose and simultaneously rolled her eyes. Like answering my question was like picking up her feet: A whole lot of bother for no good payoff. "I study interpretive walking," she said.
 
"Interpretive walking? Is that like interpretive dance?"
 
"Your zombie is so sludged out."
 
I hadn't looked at them for a few minutes. No reason to. They hadn't moved, hadn't even blinked. They were each sitting at an angle, like their postures were both rigid and warped.
 
I should have restrained myself, but I couldn't. I said, "Your zombie's no better."
 
She sludged out of her chair. "I think it's time to go."
 
"Wait," I said. I don't know why, but I was still trying. I don't think I would have if she didn't look so mugga good in her Flex 3000's. But she did. She did. "Listen," I stammered. "Listen, we can dress them up. I've got these costumes, all kinds of costumes. Like cowboy and Indian. Or maybe dog and cat. That might spark something."
 
"I've got to leave. I have school Tuesday."
 
"It's Saturday."
 
"Well, duh-duh."
 
"We could take them for a walk. You know, outside."
 
"Are you crazy?" she said. "There's like food riots out there. We'd be lucky if they didn't eat us."
 
I didn't know what to say to that. I was also fresh out of ideas. I resigned myself to the inevitable, and I tried to salvage what I could. I offered to see her out. She didn't refuse, so I followed her down the stairs.
 
In the zombie room she snapped the choker around Agatha's neck. Megan looked contemptuously at Harold. Like he was something someone forgot to flush.
 
"He's so mugga fat," Megan told me. "Maybe that's why he's so sludgy. You should put him on a diet."
 
Megan raised Agatha to her feet. I held the door open for them, then escorted them to the porch. This time Agatha didn't struggle. She was compliant, maybe even—scared. I was glad of that. Not that she was scared, but that she was moving without Megan needing to resort to the choker.
 
I watched them walk onto the porch. Megan still wasn't picking up her feet, and I wondered whose walk she was interpreting. Maybe an old-time criminal heading to the gallows. Maybe a depressed astronaut walking in heavy-grav.
 
"What about next week?" I asked.
 
"What about it?"
 
"Never mind."
 
As I closed the door, sick inside over the whole rotten day, Agatha stopped moving. Megan yanked on the choker, but that was the last thing I saw. I let the door click shut. I wasn't sorry I was going to miss the rest of it. Not even those Flex 3000's were worth that.
 

The next couple of days I tried to explain things to Harold. I told him not to worry about it. Agatha was far from the only zombie in the sea. I'm not sure he understood me, but a couple of times he looked my way and groaned. He also said 'fabular' twice more. And once, while I was brushing his teeth, I think he said 'mugga.' I didn't go shit ape about it this time. I just smiled and kept on brushing.
 
We started rummaging through the zombie personals again. I read them slowly, one after another, for two days. But this time Harold didn't react to any of them. I wondered if the Megan and Agatha experience had been as traumatic for him as it had been for me. Probably not, but I wasn't so sure of things anymore. Harold seemed more and more human everyday.
 
Then, on Tuesday afternoon, right about the time Megan would be studying her interpretive walks, Dad entered Harold's room and asked me to come with him. He said he wanted to talk to me.
 
I stood up to follow him, already concerned. Dad asking to speak with me was never a good thing. It rarely happened unless I had done something wrong. But I couldn't imagine what that could be. I had been taking good care of Harold, better than ever, really, and I had even been nicer to Mom lately, not flipping her the tall finger towers every time I saw her. Perhaps I had forgotten to do something he asked me to do. A chore, maybe. Yet that didn't make sense either. We hadn't spoken for over a week. Maybe he wanted to apologize for going shit ape the other day. It wasn't plausible, but I couldn't think of anything else.
 
We stopped in the living room. "Take a seat," Dad said.
 
I dropped onto the sofa and Dad sat across from me in his reading chair. His face was mugga somber. Like someone just told him all the world's tomatoes were back to normal size.
 
Before Dad began talking, he inhaled and exhaled several long sighs, each more pronounced than the last, until I worried he might hyperventilate. When he appeared ready to speak, Mom walked into the room. I glanced up at her, but she wouldn't meet my eyes. Instead, her eyes drifted toward Dad. They shared a glare—the kind you wouldn't notice unless you lived in the same house for 22 years—and then Dad shook his head, broke eye contact, and became obsessed with an invisible piece of fluff on his pants.  I was getting very concerned now. If Mom was upset, something was way, way wrong. She grabbed something and she left the room. She never looked my way.
 
"Is someone sick?" I asked.
 
"Lots of people," Dad said. He felt the need for one more sigh. "But no one in this family. Thank God. We're blessed. We're truly blessed, Gary. You know that, don't you?"
 
"I guess." I was too trumped up to count my blessings. "So what's wrong?"
 
"I want you to know this isn't a punishment," Dad began. "You've been treating your zombie with dignity and respect. Don't think your mother and I haven't noticed. We have. And we appreciate it, especially me. There was that little episode when you didn't feed him, but I blame myself for that as much as I blame you. Taking care of a zombie is a big responsibility, and I should have kept a better eye on things until I was certain you were capable of handling it yourself." He paused, then added, "I heard your zombie had a visitor the other day. Another zombie."
 
"Yeah," I said. I wished he'd get to the point.
 
"And she looked like something out of a concentration camp."
 
I nodded. I didn't like where this was going.
 
"It's wrong, Gary. The whole damn thing is wrong. In the old days they used to have a word for it. Slavery. But this is even worse than slavery. At least slaves served a purpose. They planted and harvested things. They took care of people's houses. Slavery was wrong, truly despicable, but at least the slaves kept some semblance of their humanity. Something they could build on after they were set free. Zombies don't do anything, can't do anything. They're just there for idle amusement. And they aren't quite human. Not anymore. Not after conversion."
 
"Harold's my friend," I said.
 
"I can't deal with it," Dad continued, as if I had said nothing. "I thought I could, but I can't. Don't you see? By having him here, we're saying we approve. I won't support this disgusting culture, not even passively. He has to go."
 
"No," I yelled. But it wasn't a yell. I was still too flabbered to yell. The word was more like a squeaky cry. "No," I said again, trying to make up for the last one.
 
"He's already sold," Dad said. "I found a guy willing to take him for half the payments. Best deal I could get on short notice. We're going to lose a lot of money over this, but I'm chalking that up to a lesson learned. He's coming tomorrow to take the zombie."
 
I stood. My mind was racing a meter a minute. I couldn't believe this was happening. Dad had prefaced his statement by saying this wasn't a punishment, but I knew better. He hated me. He hated me and he hated anything that made me happy.
 
"You can't do it," I screamed. "I won't let you."
 
"This is my house. And my rules. If you want to make your own rules, you get your own house…"
 
And on, and on. I kept at him, but there was no changing his mind. There never was once Dad decided on something. After all was lost, and I knew it, I went totally shit ape. I threw Mom's miniature horses against the walls. I kicked over the living room table, shattering a vase. I ripped up one of Dad's books and two of Mom's magazines. I screamed insults about tomatoes. Then I got mugga stupid and punched my hand through a window. I cut my wrist up good.
 
After that, everything was chaos. Voices. Hands. A jolt that sent me tripping over my own feet and slamming into the sofa. Blood from my wrist painted everything in red spots. I looked down at the wound, then up at Dad.
 
"I hate you," I said.
 
"For now," he said. "For now."
 
Mom came in with bandages. She went to work on me. By now I was pretty much sludged out. As Mom was wrapping me up, I collapsed into her bosom and wept so hard I could barely breathe.
 
Outside, I heard Dad's kit-car starting up. He was leaving for work.
 

I didn't say goodbye to Harold and I didn't watch him leave. All I know is he was there the next morning and gone that night.
 
I descended into a major sludge. For weeks I rarely left my room. I hardly showered and hardly ate. I spent most of my time watching porn on the net, the naked and sweaty figures projected across my filthy room. I didn't even care if anyone caught me. I guess I played a few hundred games of hand-eye, too, but it didn't interest me like it once had. I mean, you can only score so many points and then you're asking: What's the point of all these points?
 
Three weeks into this sludge, I gave Megan a call. I thought if anyone would understand what losing your zombie was like, and how awful it felt, it would be another zombie owner. But Megan acted like she didn't know me. Like I was so last week.
 
Before Megan broke signal, I saw Agatha again. She was standing in the background. She didn't look any better; maybe she looked worse. I didn't think it was fair. I had treated Harold pretty well, and he was taken from me. Megan treated Agatha like trash, and she still had her zombie.
 
A lot of things didn't seem fair to me.
 
And the weeks tumbled by. Late spring became early autumn. Ensconced in my room, I barely noticed.
 
Then one day I couldn't sit around anymore. I don't know why. There wasn't any impetus, not that I remember. It was like one minute I was fine, the same sludged out Gary I had always been, and the next I could no longer endure my bare bedroom walls. I needed to get out of there, so I walked into the zombie room and, feeling too restless and maybe a touch nostalgic, I started taking inventory.
 
A lot of Harold's stuff had gone with him: the food pellets, his clothes, the hose in his wash room, things like that. But there were also other things left behind. The action pack was still there and so were all the costumes. That was odd because they had cost my parents a lot of money, and though you couldn't get a cup of sand for them now—zombie owners had long ago moved on to newer costumes and expansion packs—it didn't make sense to leave them behind either. So I asked Mom about it, and she said that the guy who bought Harold was an older man, in his mid-forties, and he didn't plan to play with Harold.
 
I wondered what he did plan to do with him.
 
Finding out where Harold had gone wasn't hard. Zombies have to be registered at the BZA (Bureau of Zombie Affairs) and they keep that information public on the net. Within minutes I printed a copy of the guy's name and address and even his videophone code. Chester Sheck was his name, and he lived in a sludged out neighborhood in East Redmond. Not usually the kind of place where a zombie lands. More likely a place where a zombie might come from.
 
It was troubling. So I started thinking about things, hard. I added A to B and C to D, did some more research on the net, and in two hours I had a plan.
 

At dinner that night—tomato soup and corn bread—I spoke to Dad for the first time since the day he informed me he sold Harold. And I told him I wanted a job.
 
Mom dropped her spoon and Dad laughed. "Yeah, right," he said.
 
"I'm mugga serious."
 
"A job means you have to work, Gary."
 
"I guess I know that."
 
Still chewing, Dad said, "I thought you hated me. Now you want me to hire you?"
 
I didn't say anything.
 
"You mean it?"
 
I looked at him. I looked at him like I meant it.
 
"Oh, I understand," Dad said, half-grinning. "You think you'll work for a while and buy yourself another zombie. Then, once you have him, you'll stick me with the rest of the bill. Well, you can forget it. I'll never let another zombie live in this house."
 
"I don't want another zombie. I want a job."
 
Dad dabbed his face with his napkin, neatly set the napkin down, and leaned back. He looked at me again, met my eyes. "Okay," he said, drawing out the word. "If you're serious, I guess I can work you in. Entry level. That means you'll be picking up around the office, making coffee, and doing stuff like that. How's that sound to you?"
 
I didn't want to come across as too eager. "Isn't there something better?"
 
"Not for someone with your education and work experience. Hell, if you weren't my son, you wouldn't stand a chance at getting hired. We've got people lined up for two kilometers every time a position opens. But I'm telling you, Gary: if I hire you, if I take food out of someone's mouth, you better not embarrass me. You'll be at work every day and you'll do whatever you're told. You'll get no special treatment for being my son."
 
"Okay."
 
"I'll start you off on two-hour shifts. Let you get your feet wet."
 
"I'll work the full four hours like everyone else."
 
"Are you well?" Mom asked me.
 
"Never better," I said.
 

I could have gone to check on Harold before this, but I didn't. I guess I was afraid. Or maybe I didn't yet have the will, didn't truly believe I could do what needed to be done. But during the car rides to work with Dad, I realized I should at least try. The Linthol would make it easier. Not easy, but easier.
 
Of course, a part of me was still hedging, still hoping. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe Harold was being treated well. I wanted to believe that.
 
I did bother to find out that Chester Sheck lived alone and worked nights. By trade he was a tattoo artist, and he made a pretty good living inking people colorful. Lately, a couple of gangs were mugga big into tattoos. One of them—The Letter Heads—walked around with big J's or P's or W's printed on their faces.
 
The house was dark and looked empty. It was a one-story home with badly damaged siding. The lawn was a shaggy carpet that had been torn up. Overhead, the moon beamed half full. Like one of those broken-in-two wafers that are supposed to be the body of Christ. A cold night, I was wearing only my Dismember's Only shirt and an old pair of Flex 2000's. Stupid of me. Besides offering little protection against the increasing wind, they marked me as someone who had no business loitering around.
 
I approached the house slowly, my heart punching my chest, and in the rear yard I found a window I thought I could pry open. I was mugga nervous. Like I had pins and needles in my brain. The houses in East Redmond are all packed together with only thin alleys separating them. Anyone might see me. I wasn't afraid of the cops—the police had long ago given up on these kinds of neighborhoods—but, having nothing else to do, the neighbors often stared out their windows. And for some of them, any excuse to kill a rich kid was excuse enough.
 
If I had any sense I would have brought a crowbar or a knife. But I didn't. Opening the window was slow, difficult work. It wasn't locked, but it probably hadn't been opened in years and it was jammed. I pulled up, time after time, my fingers numb from the cold and aching from the strain. My wrist, not yet fully healed, spiked pain all through my arm and into my chest. At last I was able to wedge one hand under the sill, and, using all my strength, I jerked the window open.
 
I thought the window would lead into a basement, but when I stumbled inside and clicked on my little flashlight I found instead a makeshift tattoo shop. First thing I saw was a tattoo chair. Only this chair had restraints and reminded me of one of those lethal injection tables. I stepped back. The air smelled bitter and stale, full of dust and chemicals, and my pen-flashlight splashed only a thin, hopeless yellow light. I moved the flashlight left, then slowly right, and catalogued a metal table, eight or nine open bottles of ink, a mountain of soiled towels, something that looked like a dentist's drill, and a shelf filled with books. The books were mostly about tattooing, but there were also a few paperback novels and at least a dozen magazines. Rare items in these parts. I didn't see Harold.
 
I waved the flashlight around, pointed it deeper into the room. The light disappeared before it hit anything. Like a match tossed into deep space. "Harold," I said.
 
Nothing.
 
I tried it again. "Harold."
 
I waited.
 
Nothing. Just nothing.
 
"Ernssss. Ernsssss." His voice came low at first, then louder. "Ernnsssss."
 
I moved toward the sound, groping in the dark. I listened again and once more I heard Harold groan. His voice sounded thick, filled with mucus. This wasn't good. Not even having seen him, I already knew that. Not good, not good at all. Part of me wanted to turn and run. Run out of there and go home. Home. Where my life, my sludged out life, was simple and easy. But I wouldn't let myself. I knew I would never forgive myself if I ran away now.
 
At the far end of the room, I came upon a ratty, mildewed curtain. I pulled back the curtain—it was moist and slimy to the touch—and found Harold there. He stood in a room no bigger than a coat closet, chained to the wall at the neck and wrists and ankles, his breathing short and erratic. Harold was naked and every inch of him was covered with ink. There were pictures of dragons and naked women and winged horses and odd geometric shapes that appeared to be nothing more than doodles. His skin was a dull rainbow of blues and greens and oranges and yellows. His ears were made to look like butterflies. His nose was colored a clown's red. Underneath some of the lighter tones, there were traces of even older tattoos, as if he'd been tattooed, bleached mostly clean, then tattooed again. In some places his skin looked like raw muscle and was soupy with infection. A mugga stink spilled off him, a terrible odor, like maggots mixed with pus. And there, below him, rested a clumped pile of his defecation and a puddle of his urine.
 
I had to turn away.
 
There wasn't even any point going shit ape. No hapless kicking or tall finger towers was going to cure this. Things had moved beyond that. Way, way beyond that. I thought of Dad. In his rush to evict Harold, he had obviously neglected to check on Chester Sheck's background. If Dad had any idea that Harold had come to this, if he could see Harold's scarred limbs, if he could smell the stench, he would never forgive himself. In another time I would have thrown this in Dad's face. But now... now I knew I never would.
 
I stood in the dark, just stood there. My heart was pounding, a prisoner scratching at the prison bars of my ribs. I inhaled a deep breath, and I was immediately sorry. My gag reflex thrust puke all the way to the back of my tongue. I could taste its acidic surge, feel it stinging my sinuses. With some effort, I forced it all back down and, still queasy, I started to sweat through my clothes. It was cold here, colder than it was outside. I thought of bomb shelters, mausoleums.
 
"Son of a bitch," I said.
 
"Fub-u-lerrrnss."
 
I was staring off at the darkness. My words were whispers. "Don't mock me," I said. "I'm sorry, Harold. Jesus, I'm mugga sorry."
 
Raising the flashlight, I forced myself to look at him. There wasn't much drool. There probably wasn't any spit to make the drool. By accident, I shined the flashlight into Harold's eyes. He didn't look away, didn't even blink. I moved the flashlight closer. The rims of his eyes were swollen and even they were covered with ink. He didn't know the light was there.
 
He was blind.
 
I tried to pull him free of his shackles. I yanked and yanked—I don't know for how long—but it was no good. The metal clamps were too strong for me and my fingers were already sore from opening the window. Tired now, panting, I gave it up. I needed a key. But the key was probably with Chester Sheck and I wasn't going to leave Harold like this until I could steal it.
 
I had left him like this long enough.
 
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Linthol. It was time.
 
"Listen, I can't get you out," I said, speaking each word distinctly. "In my hand, I'm holding poison. Do you understand? Poison. If you eat it, you'll die. You'll die quickly. No pain. No more pain. Never again. Do you understand?"
 
"Ernsss…"
 
I placed the Linthol to his lips, moved it around some so he could feel it, and waited. I wasn't going to wait long. The stench coming off him was unbearable, churning my stomach again, and I was worried that Chester Sheck might come home. If Harold didn't understand, I'd force the poison down his throat.
 
He opened his mouth.
 
I set the Linthol onto his tongue. He chewed and swallowed. Like no big deal. Like he might be eating one of those awful pellets. I waited a moment. Then, all of a sudden, his face relaxed into that warped smile, and he looked like he did that day I wiped his head with the towel. Almost content. Almost, but not quite.
 
I said goodbye. And I got out of there fast. I didn't watch him die and I didn't wait around for a thank you. Like I said. If you wait for thanks from a zombie, you'll wait a long time.
 

That was three weeks ago. Last Thursday, Chester Sheck called my father and demanded their contract be considered null and void. He claimed Dad had sold him a terminally ill zombie. Dad told him he'd be glad to void the contract—after an autopsy proved that Harold died of natural causes. Chester said he'd think about and slammed the phone in Dad's face.
 
That gave me a nervous day and night.
 
But then Chester refused to have Harold autopsied. He said Harold was already buried, and he wasn't going pay the money to exhume a stinking zombie. More likely Chester thought Harold had died of ink poisoning or massive infection. Or perhaps he feared people would see the tattoos and charge him with cruelty to an animal. The possibility of sabotage was never brought up.
 
At my request, we held a funeral. Dad bought us each a rose to throw into a nearby lake. Mom said some nice things about my zombie, even though she still couldn't think of him without getting the winkles. Dad asked me if I had anything to say about Harold.
 
"His name wasn't Harold," I corrected him. "His name was José ." Then, watching the three roses drift off in the current, I said, "I guess I'm one of those zombie lovers after all."
 
Since then things have been pretty normal. I still go to work with Dad in the mornings, though he's promised to help me buy a kit-car if I keep up the good work. At night I come home, wait until Mom goes to sleep, and then I begin my other job. I go to my room, which I keep spotless, and I withdraw from their hiding places my charts and BZA reports and maps. I spread them out on the bed, the floor, and the walls. Then, until the late hours, I research. I now know where every zombie is located in Washington and Oregon and Northern California. I have them listed in notebooks. They're numbered, prioritized. And yes, Agatha is on that list. It might take a while to get to her, but I will get to her. I have access to enough Linthol to get to them all.
 
I'll be 23 next month.
 
I'm tired of sludging around.
 
I want to do something fabular with my life.
 

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