Love in the Time of Zombies: A Dystopian Romance
Author: Lynn Messina
Date: 2014-02-11 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Humorous; Short Stories (Single Author)
Description: It’s 2017, and a raging virus has drastically reduced the world’s population of men, transforming all but a fraction into a race of putrid, brain-dead zombies. So what’s single, ambitious 23-year-old Hattie Cross to do for fun, not to mention romance? In this hilarious marriage of post-apocalyptic fiction and supersmart chick-lit with a wry twist, novelist Lynn Messina spoofs dating manuals, monsters, and the superficial media world, all the while creating a feisty, funny heroine with heart.
Publisher: Shebooks

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Copyright © 2014 by Lynn Messina

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

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For zombie lovers everywhere

Love in the Time of Zombies

It all goes back to the moment a zombie catches fire in my living room.

The fire isn’t my fault. It’s Katya Yusenoff’s. She’s the one who wrote the article for Zombopolitan magazine called “Zombie Xanadu: 6 Tips for a Lively Date with the Living Dead,” which provides a few simple guidelines for the perfect evening. Among her recommendations: Light softly-scented candles. Put out flowers. Sauté cow’s brains in an herbes de Provence sauce.

I followed every tip to the letter, and now the roses are wilted, my date is on fire, and I can’t find my cat.

This disaster is entirely Katya’s fault, but I really should have known better. Seventeen years after the H1Z1 virus turned 99.9999 percent of all human males into zombies, I know well enough that zombies aren’t boyfriend material. They’re putrefying lumps of rotting flesh that cause unnecessary traffic jams during the height of rush hour by lumbering into the street without looking both ways (or either way).

And yet. Katya’s article had a winning, carefree tone that made dating a zombie seem like a madcap lark, a screwball comedy waiting for its Carole Lombard moment. She argued her case so well: Modern zombies are completely harmless to human females, they are widely available and they aren’t afraid of commitment.

Okay, I thought. I’m an open-minded, empowered 23-year-old woman in the post-male era. I’m not afraid to try new things. Moreover, I’m a journalist. Trying new things is in my job description.

Well, this is certainly a new thing, I think, as the blaze sizzles up my zombie date’s arm, and I stand there, trying to figure out what I should do first—put out the fire or find Twinkle Toes.

On paper, the former seems like the more pressing problem—obviously, I don’t want my small Brooklyn apartment to go up in flames, especially with two pissy roommates. But given that H1Z1 zombies are moist lumps of decaying flesh, they are surprisingly hard to ignite. The fire is less a soaring conflagration than a slow smolder, which my date ignores as he continues to scrape cow’s brain off herbed toast points, blissfully unaware of the potential risk to life and limb. His demeanor, of course, is the product of millions of dead neurons rotting in his brain rather than a composed approach to danger, but I still find the effect oddly comforting. He’s like a gentleman drinking sherry on the deck of the Titanic while the ship takes on water.

Twinkle Toes, on the other hand, has millions of working neurons but uses only three or four at any given moment as a matter of principle. This makes her spectacularly stupid, and she showed not a speck of alarm at the putrid smell of my dining companion. Rather, she cozied up to Kaa the second I brought him home, wrapping herself around his legs and purring softly as if he were about to put down her food bowl.

Maybe she thought he was her food bowl.

Either way, she stayed by his side all through cocktail hour and at one point seemed poised to jump directly into his mouth.

Even she couldn’t be that stupid. Still, I locked her in my bedroom just to be safe. But now the bedroom door is open, and Twinklie is nowhere to be seen, which is extremely unusual. She’s usually the first to get underfoot when a crisis is occurring, either to be close to the action or to sabotage my efforts. (I like to think her motives are murky to her, too.)

It’s impossible—well, extremely unlikely—that Kaa swallowed her whole while I was in the kitchen plating the cervelle de boeuf Provençale because I was gone for only a minute and zombies simply don’t have the gross motor skills necessary for rapid movements. Furthermore, they’re innately messy creatures. If Kaa had gobbled up Twinklie as an hors d’oeuvre, there would be incriminating cat hairs on his chin.

Kaa’s arm crackles and sparks, and with a deep sigh, I reach for the flower vase and dump water on the smolder before the silk tablecloth catches fire. That was another one of Katya Useless’s tips: Don’t stint on the table dressing. Use your finest china, silver, and linens exactly as you would for an unzombified human male so that you don’t feel like dating a zombie is sloppy seconds. He might not notice the details, but you will.

Now my grandmother’s damask tablecloth is entirely ruined—and not from the fire, either. No, it has oily bits of zombie flesh rubbed into its lovely pattern.

Thanks, Katya, I think as I get down on my hands and knees to look under the couch for Twinkle Toes.

Not there.

Goddamn it.

I lift the curtains, check the bathtub, and open the kitchen cabinets. Twinklie isn’t in any of her usual hiding spots, and what just moments before seemed extremely unlikely inches its way up to somewhat possible.

“Fucking hell,” I mutter as my eyes settle on the cover of Zombopolitan, its bright, bold, and simple teaser “You + Zombie = Bliss” mocking me from the coffee table.

Stupid, clueless article. Clearly the writer has never dated a zombie in her entire life. Otherwise, she wouldn’t tell you to take out your favorite things. And that cover image! A zombie frolicking in the ocean surf with his girlfriend! That’s a complete fabrication by the art department. Everyone knows zombies don’t take direction. Even with the new behavioral-modification drugs that improve zombie brain function, you can’t get one to cradle a woman in his arms.

Even if you did, his arms would likely fall off.

I look under the bed, behind the door and in the dresser. As I pull apart my closet, I mentally compose my own list of tips for zombie-dating bliss:

One: Ditch the fancy duds. When having a zombie over for dinner, use easy-to-clean aluminum chairs so you don’t get zombie guts on your furniture. Worried about comfort? Don’t be. Comfort is in the mind of the beholder and zombies don’t have minds.

Two: Can the silver. All flatware—even seemingly harmless spoons—are deadly weapons in the uncoordinated grip of a zombie. Serve finger food.

Three: Skip the mood lighting. Zombies love playing with fire. Literally. They think the flickering flame is actually a toy. If you must have a romantic atmosphere, use a flashlight.

Four: Keep it simple. Zombies eat brains. Any brain. Any time. You don’t have to fancy them up with exotic spices. If you have an uncontrollable desire to Julia Child some toast points, invite your friends over for a girls’ night in.

Five: Weed the garden. The putrescence released during decarboxylation wilts most flowers within an hour, so save those beautiful buds for a proper dinner party with your beautiful buds. If a centerpiece is an absolute must, arrange some dandelions in a clear plastic cup.

Six: Ignore tips one through five. Why the fuck should you date a zombie? You’re a smart, funny, beautiful woman, not a mound of rotting flesh. Sure, there are only 344,923 or so healthy human males left on the planet, which makes them elusive and tricky to find. Many of them are movie stars or paid companions. But think about it: They’re human and they’re male. Without question, finding one is worth a little bit of effort. Maybe you’re intimidated by the relentlessly negative statistics fed to us by the media—like the one we always hear that says a woman is more likely to get hijacked by a terrorist, staked to a bamboo pole in the Heilongjiang Province of Inner Mongolia, and have her spleen eaten by a saber-toothed tiger than meet a man. Don’t be. That study used a restricted demographic, ignored several significant sociological developments, and severely overestimated the number of saber-toothed tigers in Inner Mongolia.

Thoroughly frustrated, I slam the closet doors and march into the living room. Kaa is gone. His chair is on its side and his napkin is in the middle of the floor. I follow the trail of arm ash to the kitchen to find my zombie date trying to open the microwave door, where a second serving of the cervelle is cooling. Twinkle Toes is on his left shoulder, trying to help.

The relief I feel is so intense, it’s immediately supplanted with an equally strong sense of embarrassment and shame. I can’t believe I actually brought a zombie to my house for dinner. I cooked for a rotting, smelly, decaying clump of flesh. No, not just cooked—slaved over the stove for this less-than-human being. Then I spent the rest of the evening worrying that he ate my cat.

Other people might be up for this but not me. Hattie Cross is too good to date an animated dead thing, even if it does mean achieving a long-held life goal of publishing a piece in Whirligig, the fun, irreverent, internationally famous section of The Xombie Review.

Hmmm.

Well, when you break it down like that—Whirligig, published, life goal—it doesn’t seem like an entirely dismal proposition. Twinkle Toes is fine, so no harm done there, and I’ve learned vital information about myself: namely, that I will never date a zombie.

Calmer, I grab my phone and take a few selfies with Kaa and my cat. Then I shoot two dozen pics of the carnage wrought by following Katya Yusenoff’s useless advice. I get a particularly good shot of Twinkle Toes licking the ash off Kaa’s arm. The image roils my stomach, but I know good photojournalism when it makes me gag.

I open the microwave door and take out the cervelle, which is now soggy and starting to separate. Luckily, Kaa is no discerning gourmand and he eagerly, if lumberingly, follows me to the apartment door, down the stairs and onto the sidewalk. I place the dish on the garbage can near the corner and walk away without a backward glance.

As far as exit strategies go, it’s pure improvisation, which I’m forced to do because Katya doesn’t provide tips on how to end your zombie date gracefully. In her perfect little zombified world, your new rottie stays forever. You + Zombie + Dinner = Mated for Life.

I can’t think of anything worse.

The Xombie Review is the high-minded magazine you wish you had time to read. It arrives in your mailbox every Monday and sits on your dining room table or kitchen counter staring up at you, its colorful cartoon cover a rebuke to your inability to properly manage your time. Honestly, all you need is another 153 minutes a week and you’d be set.

You do, however, have the 20 minutes required to whip through Whirligig, with its arch tales of New York City life—and so do half a million other women. For this reason, getting an item in Whirligig is a hugely massive deal. It won’t earn you gobs of money (or even any money, if you’re an intern like me), but it will score you bragging rights and the attention of every editor and agent in town.

If you want to be a respected journalist, there’s no better place to start.

Because I aspire to nothing more than respected journalist, I stop at Claudette’s on the way into the office to pick up a dozen haute-cuisine doughnuts for Mehta Goldberg, senior editor and Whirligig gatekeeper.

In the month I’ve been interning at The Xombie Review, I’ve gotten almost two dozen doughnuts for Mehta. Every morning around 11 a.m., the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner craves a round of fried chocolate dough. It happens every day like clockwork, but Mehta doesn’t recognize the pattern. Each time the yen overtakes her, it’s as if it’s the very first time it’s ever happened. She’ll buzz me on the intercom and say, “You know what I could really go for, Ms. Cross? A doughnut. Can you possibly scare one up?”

Both questions are rhetorical, but the latter drives me crazy because it implies that it’s okay if I can’t actually scare one up, that my best effort is all that’s required to meet her expectations. In reality, however, even a global doughnut shortage would be no excuse for failure. I’d be expected to grow the wheat, separate it from the chaff, pound it into flour, and bake the doughnut myself, all within a 15-to-20-minute window. Luckily, the global zombie pandemic has yet to affect doughnut production, so I’ve had no trouble securing one daily—the coffee shop downstairs serves a decent, if a little mealy, variety. Sometimes, though, her requests are more esoteric. Last week she asked for a white panther cub for a photo shoot and tickets to the sold-out Duckbill Platypussies show at Radio City. I managed to get both, but it took the entire day and I may or may not have sold my mother into slavery.

It’s hardly the writing experience I signed up for when I got the super-competitive internship.

Yet even with all the running, fetching, and mother enslaving, I know I’m extremely lucky to have this gig. Mehta Goldberg, for all her petty tyranny, is the best at what she does. She’s the gold standard for journalism, and I’m her hand-picked protégé. She will mold me.

The only problem is, Mehta doesn’t quite see our relationship as mentor-mentee. To her, it’s more like editrix extraordinaire and random gopher assigned by a flunky in human resources. The hoops I had to jump through to impress the head of HR don’t register on her radar at all.

But that’s all about to change.

Eagerly, I sit down at my desk to begin my daily routine of filing, sorting, photocopying, scheduling, transcribing, and emailing. My to-do list is three Post-Its long and I try to cross off items with my usual efficiency, but I’m too busy watching the clock. Mehta isn’t even here yet.

I shouldn’t be here yet. My day doesn’t officially start until 9:30,, but I was too excited to sleep.

Ordering myself to focus on a task to make time go faster, I pull up an email from Mehta with an interview she did with a harbor patrolwoman from Staten Island who runs seal-spotting trips on her days off. Mehta is writing about the return of seals to New York Harbor for an upcoming special issue. Wildlife is thriving in the waters all around Manhattan, a boon attributed to the H1Z1 plague, which had the simultaneous affect of reducing the world’s population by almost half and effectively galvanizing the remaining 52.4 percent to actually address the issue of climate change. Carbon emissions are down to pre-1930s levels and continuing to drop.

I cue up the sound file, snag a cup of coffee from the kitchen, and settle in for the long slog of transcribing.

Mehta arrives a little after 10 and nods her head curtly. “Ms. Cross,” she says as she strolls by my desk. Then she closes her office door and sends me an email with the morning’s priorities. The transcription I’m working on is fourth, so I stop what I’m doing and switch to number one: sending out a contract to Whitney Dhurrie, whose piece on the zombie pinball champion of Harlem is running in next week’s Whirligig.

At 11:07, I get the buzz. “Ms. Cross, I find myself with a sudden desire for a chocolate doughnut. Please see what you can do about it.”

I can do plenty, I think as I pick up out the lemon-yellow box. I knock at her door and wait for the brisk command to enter.

“Doughnuts,” I announce triumphantly, holding the box aloft.

“Thank you, Ms. Cross,” she says, her fingers flying across the keyboard. She doesn’t stop typing. She doesn’t look up. She doesn’t notice that something is amiss—namely that only 43 seconds separated her request for doughnuts and my delivery of them. This is because in her universe, that’s exactly how long it should take to have her desire fulfilled.

With sickening dread, I realized that rather than being successful on this occasion, I’ve been a failure on every other.

Although I’m thrown by this revelation, I refuse to be cowed by it. I straighten my shoulders and try again. “I have doughnuts from Claudette’s.”

“Claudette’s?” she asks, her typing as brisk as ever. “Where’d you get those?”

“From Claudette’s,” I explain as I put the box down on her desk. Holding it up like a trophy feels meaningless now. “I picked them up this morning.”

Now Mehta stops writing and looks at me. “This morning? Before work?” She draws her brows together in confusion. “Before I asked for a doughnut?”

“Well, it is my job to anticipate your needs,” I say modestly, then open the box with a flourish to reveal a brightly colored assortment.

Mehta immediately homes in on a chocolate doughnut with rainbow sprinkles. “I must admit, Ms. Cross, that I’m impressed with your prescience. Well done.”

I wave my hand dismissively, as if getting doughnuts for my boss is something I do every day. Because it is. “I was running a little early this morning,” I say waiting for her to offer me one. There are 12 of them and only one of her. The math is undeniable.

And yet.

“I appreciate your effort. This doughnut is delicious, so delicious, that I find myself craving a cold glass of milk. Do you think you could track some down?”

“Of course,” I say, because the newsstand in the lobby stocks little boxes of milk in three flavors (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry) as well as plain. “I’ll go out and get some ASAP. But first”—I take one deep, terrified breath—“I wanted to run an idea by you.”

Mehta raises an eyebrow. “An idea?”

“For an article. For Whirligig,” I explain quickly. “I want to pitch an article idea for Whirligig.”

There, I said it.

And now she gets to put the upstart intern back in her place.

But rather than slap me down, she leans back in her chair. “All right,” she says.

I’m prepared for a fight, and her mild reply almost derails my spiel.

“All right,” I say. “So, um, this month Zombopolitan magazine ran an article listing six surefire tips for dating a zombie that included things like what to wear and what to serve. It had a lot of detail, and I thought it would make a fun, informative first-person piece if I went on a date with a zombie and tried all the tips from the article.”

I pause to inhale and Mehta jumps right in. “I can see why you think that’s a great idea, and I like that you’re thinking about the magazine. I want to encourage you to do more of that. But dating a zombie isn’t fresh enough for us.”

“The Zombopolitan article only came out two days ago,” I say, feeling defensive. How fresh does an idea have to be? Do I have to chat up reporters to find out what they’re writing before they write it?

She nods. “I haven’t seen the Zombopolitan piece, but several other publications have written on the same theme in recent months. The New Yorker has already done a Shouts & Murmurs with fake zombie-dating tips such as: Don’t date a zombie.”

“Oh.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t noticed the trend. In the last two months, about a dozen publications have written articles advocating female human–zombie male relationships. It’s such a thing that The Daily Scoopage has created an entire conspiracy behind it, claiming that the increased coverage is due not to zombie dating reaching a tipping point but to Geyser & Meiser engineering a campaign to create a zombie-dating culture in an effort to increase sales of its number-one-selling zombie-behavioral-modification medication, Zombachol.”

The Daily Scoopage is a supermarket rag that peddles a lurid mix of celebrity gossip, government conspiracies, and zombie curiosities. Its cover features fuzzy images of so-called unconfirmed zombie phenomena such as Zombyeti, Cuprazombra, and Zombzilla. The photos are ostensibly taken by a crew of fearless photogs rushing headlong into dark forests and dense jungles to bring the truth to light, but anyone who hasn’t been completely zombified can tell that the pictures are doctored by a skilled team of Photoshoppers.

The tabloid is an embarrassment to journalists everywhere. It’s the polar opposite of The Xombie Review and the last place on earth I would work.

And that’s why Mehta’s point is so well taken. If The Daily Scoopage is making up conspiracies about something, then it doesn’t belong in Whirligig (or anywhere, really).

“I didn’t realize,” I say quietly.

Mehta leans forward and wipes doughnut crumbs onto a Claudette’s napkin. “We live in an accelerated culture, and sometimes it’s hard to keep up. The key to a successful Whirligig is anticipating the curve. Don’t write something reactive; write something proactive. If Joannie Stunt Girl over at Zombopolitan is giving tips on how to date a zombie, then you give tips on how to date a human male. See what I mean? Be one step ahead.”

“Date a human male?” I repeat, dazed by the absurdity of the suggestion. She might as well have said date a unicorn.

If that’s the crazy-high bar to get into Whirligig, I might as well give up now and go work for The Daily Scoopage. They could Photoshop me on a date with a human male and stick it on the cover.

Mehta smiles. “Well, I was just using that as an example, but if you can somehow get a date with a human male, then I can pretty much guarantee you an item in Whirligig.”

I don’t know how many times Mehta has said, “I can pretty much guarantee you an item in Whirligig” in her lifetime. Perhaps she says it once a week; perhaps this is the first time ever. Regardless, she said the words to me now and there’s no going back.

I can pretty much guarantee you an item in Whirligig.

I will find a human male, I’ll date him, I’ll write it up, I’ll publish it in Whirligig, I’ll get a job as an assistant editor at The Xombie Review, I’ll have the life I’ve always wanted.

And that’s that.

Feeling charged and ready for battle, my heart racing with an unprecedented sense of purpose, I thank Mehta She was far more kind and encouraging than I’d ever expected. She’s an insightful editor, a great boss and an excellent mentor. I can feel myself being molded as I stand there.

“Thank you for the doughnuts, Ms. Cross,” she says, proving that she’s also a thoughtful person.

I’m the luckiest intern in the world.

As I close the door to her office, she reminds me to fetch her milk from the newsstand in the lobby.

According to the literature of the time, the best way to meet a single man in the waning days of the twentieth century was by accident. You would trip over his briefcase or pick up his cell phone by mistake or hail the same cab. This form of introduction was called a “meet cute.”

That’s a difficult concept to grasp, because I was six years old when the 99.9999 percent of men on earth turned into disgusting blobs of rotting, stinking flesh. Clearly, before the zombie apocalypse struck, the world was a far cuter place.

Women were far more adorable, too. Per my research, they frequently lost the ability to speak coherently in the presence of an available male, a phenomenon known as “babbling.” Similarly, they lost all coordination and the ability to properly control gross motor function. This stumbling around was called “bumbling.” In some cases, women were required to hide their intelligence, a process called “playing dumb.” This was done to appease the male ego.

There were tons of rules for dating in the late 1990s, some of them from a book actually called The Rules. In addition to The Rules, I spend days poring over relationship manuals, advice columns, and thoughtful novels confusingly described as women’s fiction. I also watch clips of pre-plague TV shows and movies. Sitcoms, in particular, offer illuminating examples of women playing down their abilities, usually proving how much smarter they are than their husbands in smug asides so that the men don’t have to know the truth. I get it: This total father-knows-least cluelessness is adorable.

A surprising amount of the literature focuses on the actual places you could meet a man—surprising because men were literally all around: behind you on the checkout line, beside you at a traffic light, next to you on the subway. There was such an abundance of human males, you’d think all you had to do was turn to your left to meet one cutely. In reality, however, you had to seek them out by, say, signing up for an auto-repair class at the local community center. The idea was to find a place where men gathered and gather there, too.

What works during times of abundance would seem to work twice as well in times of scarcity, so I stake out the closest sperm-donation center, which is located in Long Island City. The building is spare and squat, with yellow aluminum siding and a low roof. Before the plague hit, it was a nightclub called the Cathedral, which I presume was ironic, as there’s nothing grand about it. It was probably built in the 1960s to store loaves of Wonder Bread.

“I don’t get what we’re doing,” Cammie says, sliding down in the car seat next to me as she rests her sneakers on the glove compartment.

“We’re figuring out how to get in,” I explain, again. Given that all unzombified human males are required by law to pass on their H1Z1-resistant genes, a sperm-donation center seems like the ideal place to meet men. “And get your feet down. This is a rental.”

Cammie drops her feet with a hefty sigh, as if resting them on the floor of the car is the world’s greatest hardship. I want to be annoyed by the drama, but I can’t. Sighing heftily is Cammie Corrigan’s signature move. It’s like her catchphrase.

“That’s a Provisional Government Authority Class-A governmental facility,” she says, as if speaking to a child. “You can tell because it’s surrounded by a ten-foot-high gate and barbed wire.”

“I know.”

“The only way for you to ‘get in’ is to break in.” She shifts again, this time crossing her legs. “You need a retina scan just to enter the parking lot.”

“You do?” I say, leaning forward to get a better look at the kiosk-like structure at the parking lot entrance. “I thought that was a vending machine.”

“Really, Hattie?” she asks, her tone contemptuous. “That big silver thing that everyone is staring into looks like a candy dispenser to you? Really?”

“Soda, too,” I mutter.

Cammie stares at me without blinking until I’m forced to look away. She’s always been able to beat me at that. Always.

“I still don’t get why we’re here.” She looks around at the quiet street lined with warehouses and an Italian restaurant with a neon sign that says Gio’s Trattoria.

“I told you.” And I had—eight times. “If I can get a date with a unzombified human male, The Xombie Review will run my story in Whirligig. It’s the single biggest opportunity of my life.”

“And you’re going to go on a date in there?” she says, gesturing to the low, squat building. I can understand her concern. There was very little about the utilitarian structure that said romance.

“There’s probably a staff cafeteria,” I point out reasonably. “I don’t have to give chapter and verse on the date. I just need to meet a man, have a conversation with him and take photographic evidence. So what if we don’t eat lobster thermidor or go dancing at the Rainbow Room? Two or three good quotes and I’m done. And maybe a cute anecdote about how I stumbled over his briefcase and babbled an apology.”

Cammie stares at me again, but I know better than to get into a contest. “You realize you’re insane, right?” she says. “That isn’t breaking news.”

Just then, a black SUV turns left into the parking lot. Since it’s the third such vehicle in an hour, I’m pretty sure this is how the human male donors arrive. The car must pick them up and chauffer them to the facility, where they fulfill their patriotic duty before being driven back home.

“I still don’t get why I’m here.”

“I wanted company.”

“Okay, but why me?”

“Because you’re a student.”

“At the police academy,” she says, with particular emphasis.

“Yeah, so you have the inside track.”

“You want inside track? How about this: Illegally entering a Class-A government facility carries a ten-year sentence at a maximum-security prison.”

The driver of the SUV pulls up to the retina-scanning machine, lowers her window, and leans forward. She waits a moment, then pulls something from the machine. The item could very well be a receipt or a ticket, but from this distance I can’t definitively rule out a super-thin candy bar.

“Is the maximum-security prison the one where they give you the cute orange jumpsuits? Because I look surprisingly good in orange.”

Cammie lets out a sigh so hefty I worry for her lungs. She throws her hand up into the air as she shifts again in her seat. Now her sneakers are on the armrest. “You know what? I’m not worried. I’m not worried. There’s no way you’re going to get past that front gate. You can’t beat the retina scan, and you can’t climb the fence because it’s ten feet high and covered with barbed wire. So at worst you’ll get a loitering fine, which is only a misdemeanor.”

While she talks, a black SUV emerges from the depths of the parking lot and I catch a glimpse of a bearded man in the back seat before the dark-tinted windows erase him completely.

A plan begins to percolate.

“I don’t have to beat the retina scan. You see that SUV?” I point at the dark vehicle as the gate rises to let it pass. “That’s how the sperm donors get in and out of the facility. In those black SUVs that have been arriving every twenty minutes. So if I can steal my way into the back of one of those, the Provisional Government Authority will drive me right through the gate. Once in the parking garage, I’ll sneak in the front door. All I need is a white lab coat to blend in. Do you have one I could borrow?” I ask Cammie, but she’s too busy staring out her window to respond. “Never mind. I can pick one up at a medical supply store or off the Internet. Then all I have to do is find a human male, convince him not to call security, charm him into having a date, snap a few selfies of us sharing rice pudding in the cafeteria, sneak out of the building, and creep back into the SUV without anyone being the wiser.”

“Yeah, you could do that,” Cammie says, her eyes still focused on the window, which she taps lightly with her knuckles. “Or you could just go into that restaurant across the street and have lunch.”

With a sharp turn of my head, I follow her gaze. The black SUV, whose movements I had been following so closely, was now parked in front of the trattoria. Two women in standard PGA guard uniforms are escorting the bearded man into the building.

I squeal with excitement. “Omigod! Omigod! I love you, Cammie. I will love you until the day I die.”

She shrugs.

The unzombified human male is beautiful. His cheeks are so non-mottled, his forehead so non-rotted, his chin not even a bit rancid. It’s almost as if I’m looking at a mannequin. He has skin that stretches smoothly from ear to ear. He can’t be real. In addition to having all his skin, this human male specimen has a close-cropped beard, blue eyes, a square jaw, and a rangy build. His hair is brown with a liberal sprinkling of gray, but it’s all there, attached to his scalp, which is still attached to his skull, which is still protecting his brain, which isn’t sliding greasily down his forehead.

Mankind is amazing.

As soon as the human male spots us in the doorway, he jumps. Then he holds the menu in front of his face and slides down in his chair.

Gio’s Trattoria is small, with a dozen tables in the center and the same number of booths lining the walls. The décor is old school—wood paneling, white linoleum, red-checked tablecloths, incandescent chandeliers. Duckbill Platypussies’ cover of “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls plays softly over the speakers while a waitress in a pristine white apron pours Pellegrino for the human male, who doesn’t acknowledge her.

Off to the side, sitting at a booth rather than a table like their charge, are the two guards who escorted him in. According to the white stitching on their uniforms, they are Officers Ritchie and Cantor. The former has smooth blond hair pulled into a utilitarian ponytail; the latter, pixie-red hair held back with colorful clips.

Neither one bothers to look up when we enter.

“Well, there’s your dreamboat,” Cammie says softly, as she gives me a gentle shove. “Go get him, tiger.”

I appreciate the push because I’m too shocked by this turn of events to react. I can’t believe that my madcap scheme to meet a man to get into Whirligig has actually resulted in me meeting a man to get into Whirligig. A plan that insane never works out.

With a darting glance at the officers, who are too busy chatting about their weekend plans (skiing, couch shopping) to notice me, I stride purposefully to the human male and hold out my hand. “Hi,” I say, with my brightest smile. “I’m Hattie Cross.”

The unzombified human male shrieks and cowers in his seat; the menu falls to the floor. “Help, I’m being attacked. Help! Help!”

At the word attack, my heart kicks up, my muscles tense and I turn quickly to fend off the assailant he’s so terrified of. She isn’t on my right. She isn’t on my left. I look back and forth again and again. No one is there.

Nobody else reacts. The guards continue their discussion without pause (“I don’t know. I mean, red? It’s so bold. Maybe you should go more brownish. Like a burnt sienna”), as the server places a basket of bread on their table.

I look at Cammie in the doorway. She waves.

The man cries out again for help and curls up in his chair, his shoulders hunched over as if expecting a blow. With dawning horror, I realize that he’s afraid of me. I’m the assailant. I’m the one who’s attacking him.

“Omigod, no, no, no,” I say, stepping forward to offer reassurance. “I’m not going to hurt you. I was just introducing myself. I’m Hattie Cross.”

My perfectly reasonable explanation unsettles the human male even more, and he knocks over his chair and takes shelter behind it. “Don’t touch it. Please don’t touch it.”

Now the guards stop talking and look over to us. “She doesn’t want to touch it, Larry,” Ritchie says matter-of-factly.

“She does. She does, I just know it,” Larry insists. “Please help me. You’re supposed to protect me from danger.”

Cantor breaks off a piece of bread. “You’re not in danger, Larry, so chill. Have the minestrone. You know you love the minestrone.”

Larry peeks over the edge of the chair, looking far from comforted by his guards’ blasé attitude, but he doesn’t argue when the waitresses announces, “One minestrone coming right up.”

Not that he gets up off the floor.

“What’s wrong with him?” Cammie asks.

It’s a good question, exactly the sort that I, the journalist, should be asking. But I’m too confused by what’s going on to ask good questions. All I can do is stand over the huddled man with my hand out.

“He thinks she wants to touch his dick,” one of the officers says, as she dips bread into a small ceramic bowl of olive oil.

Appalled, I take several steps back and look at the woman. “What?”

The other guard smiles. “Don’t take it personally. It’s just the way men are these days. After seventeen years of being hounded and chased and pampered and petted as an exotic rarity, they’ve lost perspective. They think all women want to touch their privates, all women are after them for sex.”

“OMG.” Cammie giggles. “That’s insane.”

“The condition is called PNZSD,” Cantor explains, “Post Nonzombification Stress Disorder. An unsettling number of UHMs suffer from it.”

“Therapy helps but it works much better if the therapist is a man, and there are only a dozen of those in the world still practicing,” says Ritchie. “Geyser & Meiser is working on a drug for it.”

Cammie walks over to the booth and points to the bread. “May I?”

Cantor slides over to make room and Cammie sits down. “So working security for the PGA. What’s that like?”

“It’s a good gig,” Ritchie says. “Reliable, interesting, great benefits.”

“Yeah, the health plan is to die for.”

“I’m studying at the police academy,” Cammie says.

“Cool,” Cantor says. “Are you thinking urban security or maybe Zombie Investigation Bureau?”

The server emerges with the minestrone soup for Larry, who, still quivering on the floor, peeks out from behind his chair and looks at me accusingly. I take another step back.

“Not really sure,” Cammie says with a shrug. “Maybe urban security for the first year, then transfer to the ZIB.”

“You should do it,” Ritchie says. “I’m taking the ZIB test next month. It’s where the best opportunities for leadership are.”

Cammie nods. “Everyone says that.”

Cantor tears off another piece of bread. “It’s the truth.”

“Totally,” agrees Ritchie. “Security is a good gig if you want to stability, but if you’re ambitious you should go into the ZIB.”

“I am ambitious,” Cammie says.

Cantor asks Cammie how ambitious, Cammie says very, and I realize that it could go on forever—their trivial, mildly banal conversation could continue and continue until the world finally ends.

“Stop,” I say, practically shaking from the madness of it all—their irrelevant chatter, the restaurant’s impeccable service, the human male’s quivering body, still on the floor in a lump. “Just stop.”

Cammie and the two guards look at me like I’m the crazy one, but they stop. I look at Cantor, then Ritchie. “Are you telling me that all men are sniveling idiots?”

Ritchie laughs and shakes her head. “Not at all. Some men are non-sniveling idiots.”

Her colleague nods emphatically. “But trust us. You’re much better off with the sniveling variety because they at least keep their dicks in their pants. Non-snivelers take it out every chance they get.”

“Remember Commando Carlos?” Ritchie says, giggling. “Pathological.”

Cammie leans forward. “Seriously?”

Cantor nods. “Oh, yeah. He’d whip it out thinking that it was the neatest trick in the world. We had to keep telling him to put it away.” Cantor shrugs. “Of course, the older ones are easier to handle. They remember what things were like before the plague so they have some perspective. But the younger ones? They’ve known nothing but worship from women their whole lives and it has warped them.”

Cammie, wide-eyed, continues to grill them. Slowly, it dawns on me that it’s not their trivial chatter that’s misplaced; it’s my concern. The three of them don’t care about the horrifying state of contemporary manhood because they’ve been aware of it all along. They’ve grasped the essential truth of our age: Men don’t exist. A species that lives only in captivity isn’t truly alive.

Somehow, I’d missed this revelation. Until now, I never let myself face the simple fact that men are gone. They’re never coming back. A wonder pill isn’t going to miraculously restore everything to the way it was. My father isn’t going to one day stumble out of the woods he disappeared into all those years ago.

Mankind is over.

It has been over for 17 years.

I drop into a chair at a vacant table. The waitress appears with a basket of bread and a glass of water.

Cammie laughs as Cantor describes the dress one of her regular charges wears to avoid detection. “Dresses and wigs are hugely popular among UHMs so they can fit in,” she laughs. “Some really commit and shave their arms and legs and everything.”

“Yeah, you probably see them all the time in Starbucks. You just don’t know it. The world isn’t the place you think it is,” says Ritchie.

No, it isn’t, I think to myself. It’s so much worse.

And yet.

The sense of despair I expect to feel at the loss of my cherished illusion doesn’t come. I don’t feel hopeless. For so many years, I fought the truth, telling myself that it wasn’t too late for the world to be saved.

Maybe now, I’d think. Maybe now.

But knowing that the “maybe now” moment will never come releases me from the obligation of wishing for it. It liberates me from wanting and waiting and hoping, from devoting my time and energy to a false reality. It finally lets me see the world as it is, with a clarity so crystalline, it almost hurts my eyes. In that moment, everything is beautiful, even the grotesque hordes of rotting flesh, and I realize that the ability to look at the truth without flinching is a superpower.

Not everyone has it. Cammie, Ritchie, and Cantor do. Also Mehta, with her merciless accounting of every seal in New York Harbor. Katya Yusenoff, on the other hand, doesn’t come close. She stuck a zombie doll in a cheerful domestic scene and acted out an obsolete tradition like a child playing with puppets. She set the stage just right so that when she squinted her eyes, that blob of rotting flesh slurping up cow’s brain in the candlelight would look like the man of her dreams.

And yet , until now, she rated higher than me on the honesty scale because she only squinted; I closed my eyes and shut out the world.

Cammie squeezes my arm and I stare at her blankly for a moment before seeing the question in her eyes. “I said, Are we staying for lunch?”

Ritchie slides over to make room for me at the booth. “Come on. The Provisional Government Authority thinks you deserve a free meal after the crappy day you’ve had.”

I look at Cammie, wondering what exactly she’d told these two. The waitress hands me a menu, and I decide I don’t care.

Have I had a crappy day?

My hopes for a Whirligig debut are dashed, my romantic dreams are crushed, I’m out the cost of the car rental, and I’ve met one of the estimated 344,923 men left on the planet, so my chances of having my spleen eaten by a saber-toothed tiger just went up eightfold.

But in the win column, I gained a superpower.

All in all, a pretty good day.

Reading Guide Questions

1. What do you think of Hattie’s decision to date zombies? Do you think there might be some advantages to dating a zombie (for example, he wouldn’t mind if you got held up at work and missed dinner)? Would you try dating a zombie if 99.9999 percent of the men on Earth were zombified?

2. What’s the best piece of dating advice you’ve ever gotten? What kind of tips do you give to your friends? Would any apply to dating a zombie? Do you identify with Hattie? Do you feel that men are elusive and hard to meet?

3. In her research on how to meet a man, Hattie references several clichés of romantic comedy, including “meet cute” and female klutziness. How do you feel when you see movies and read books with these conventions? Do you think they accurately reflect your experience?

About the Author

Lynn Messina is the author of eight novels, including The Girls’ Guide to Dating Zombies and Fashionistas, which has been translated into 15 languages. Her essays have appeared in Self, American Baby, and the New York Times, and she’s a regular contributor to the Times’s Motherlode blog. Lynn lives in New York City with her husband and sons. You can visit her at http://lynnmessina.com/.

Also by Lynn Messina

The Girls’ Guide to Dating Zombies (an ebook)

Fashionistas

Henry and the Incredibly Incorrigible, Inconveniently Intelligent Smart Human

Troublemaker (an ebook)

Bleak: A Novel

Savvy Girl

Tallulahland

Little Vampire Women

Lola Was Here

Mim Warmer’s Lost Her Cool

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Table of Contents

- Love in the Time of Zombies
- Reading Guide Questions
- About the Author