Love in the Time of Zombies by Lynn Messina

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