I turned to her, my whole body hard with tiredness and regret.
If you’d saved the girl, you’d be a hero. Next time.
During our time together in this place Holly didn’t outright avoid me or treat me rudely. But she wasn’t—how do women like to put it? She wasn’t emotionally available to me.
I was a spectator who had gotten free admission to a freak show.
I’m not a bad person.
‘Eighth one this week,’ he said.
It’s not about winning, it’s about doing what’s right. And yes, we will do what’s right.
I knew then I was going to die in the street without ever seeing Holly again. All because I tried to help an old woman, proving for all eternity that no good deed goes unpunished.
I heard them tearing at it. It was the sound of mortality.
Sal turned, an eye stalk hanging from his teeth.
She gave herself a hard twist and fell into a sitting position, staring at me with those maggot-filled doll’s eyes.
For an instant I saw before me the young girl this used to be.
I don’t know how these things died without benefit of a bullet to the brain pan. They seemed to exist in an eternal twilight of longing.
Smiling, he handed Landry the bloody aluminum bat Warnick had used. ‘Time to die, old man,’ he said.
His eyes were like two wafers of slate, grey and lifeless.
The sound of him drinking was indescribable—like dirty runoff down a storm drain.
Her voice was small and distant, like she’d already left the room.
But I was still determined to protect her. It might be the one good thing I would ever do in my life. I wondered if God would even notice.
Did you ever think it won’t be the undead who kill us, but ordinary people?
A riverless silence made the air heavy.
‘Can’t you see what they are?’ I said. ‘They’re all dead.’
