The Creeping Dead: A Zombie Novel by Edward P. Cardillo

for two years now, and it was taking its toll on her husband.
                  He was going to see her in the morning after picking up some donuts along the way. She would’ve gone too, but someone needed to run the store. Besides, it was true that Mama Sophia didn’t like her.
    Maybe it was just as well. The last time Marie joined Mario on a visit, Mama Sophia acted as if she didn’t recognize her, as if she had no recollection of Marie whatsoever.
    Marie wasn’t sure if this was legitimate or just an act. For not having recognized Marie, Mama Sophia was still awfully cool toward her. Either the old bitch was faking, or perhaps she was picking up on whatever she detected when she first met Marie.
    There were remarks about Marie’s Sicilian heritage.
    “Why couldn’t you find a nice Napolitano girl, Mario?”
    “Don’t turn your back on her, Mario.”
    “Just remember, Mario, when Sicilians hug you with one arm they stab you in the back with another.”
    “Mario, what if your babies come out dark?”
    Mama Sophia almost didn’t come to their wedding, which was fine by Marie at the time, but her absence would’ve been like a knife in Mario’s heart. He was able to convince her to attend the wedding in the end after much begging and pleading.
    The reception reminded Marie of a grade school dance. The Napolitano side and the Sicilian side each stuck to their side of the banquet room with little to no interaction with the other half. Marie remembered that when she and Mario went from table to table to greet their guests (which took all goddamned night because there were four hundred guests), when she was at one side’s table, the other side shot them dirty looks, and vice versa.
    Marie’s family was no bargain either. Poor Mario, when they were dating, Marie’s father insisted on chaperoning them. Two grown adults requiring a chaperone—but that was the Sicilian way.
    She remembered her father, a stern man, sitting through the movie Black Rain with them. He kept sucking his teeth and shaking his head every time Michael Douglas cursed or someone got killed.
    Any other man would’ve run screaming the other way, but not Mario. Maybe it was because he was Italian, raised in the old school. He understood. His patience paid off because he eventually grew on her father. When he asked for her hand in marriage, her father was impressed by the gesture and granted his blessing.
    Mario was a good man. He was a peacekeeper in both families, and she admired him for it. He deserved time with his mother, and she would be patient. Mario would go and keep Mama Sophia company, recount memories, and talk about the old days. She seemed to remember fifty years ago better than fifty minutes ago, but the doctor had said that was the normal pattern of senile dementia.
    Marie lay there and wondered if her children would be so good to her one day. It wasn’t easy when her mother died. Mario was right there at her side at the hospital. Her mother had tripped on the edge of a carpet and fallen, breaking her hip on the coffee table.
    When she was recovering in the hospital, she had become so confused. She mistook Mario for Salvatore, Marie’s brother. Mario didn’t correct her. He only smiled and played the role. “If it makes her smile,” he always said.
    Marie would be patient. Her base needs would have to wait until Mario was less distracted. She reached down and slipped her fingers beneath her pajama shorts and tended to her hunger.
     
    ***
     
    Lenny lay in his bed with the air conditioning straining to cool his small room in the hotel. He wore a half grin as he dreamt of riding on the Magma cycle with Billy sitting in the sidecar. The boardwalk was crowded with life-sized pizza slices and ice cream cones wearing contorted faces that tried to eat the tourists.
    Lenny nodded gravely to Billy, who began firing the magma cannon at the ravenous food monsters. With each hit there was an explosion, and pieces of pizza, cotton