Sometimes it takes a dead man to make life worth living again.

————

     Being a divorced father can make you feel very much like a meandering dead man. Someone of no consequence.

     Shopping tired me like nothing else. Okay, maybe second only to the soul-sucking presence of my fifteen-year old son. Caleb's only communication skills consisted of the ever-present smartphone. He certainly wasn't texting me. We moseyed up and down the aisles at Bullseye. Hunting for school supplies. Each item dropped in the cart felt like an obligation. I am Dad, the wallet man. Not worthy of love. Not worthy of respect. But payer of money. 

     Yellow highlighters $1.25

     Flash Drive $5.50

     And so on. 

     At 13, my son loved monsters. Vampires. Oh lord. Werewolves. Ghosts. Especially zombies. The Z-folks we called them. 

    That changed. When I asked him what he loved now, he simply told me sports. I asked him to elaborate. He said, “Football.”

    “Favorite team?” I inquired. I’m a fan of college ball myself. 

    He shrugged.  His indifference wounded my heart. After time I learned not to ask him about anything except if he’s hungry, and where does he want to eat?

   I left a sexless marriage and a cheating wife. And it's me he resents. Me. She has him on average twenty-eight days a month. 

     It's been a full two years. When do I get my grateful, buoyant son back? The one who met me at the door when I came home at night? The one who begged me to take him to horror movies.

     My bladder pulsated like a caffeinated heart, so I told Caleb I would be right back.

     With the faith that keeps one-weekend-a-month shared-custody dads going, I vowed that I would return refreshed, revitalized, with a way to win my son back. Maybe I'd buy him a protective case for that damn phone. Or hell, perhaps I'll buy him the next model in the line.

     Within reason. I wasn't sure how much I'd pay to win him back.

---

     Once inside the bathroom. I took the third stall in. Two grimy loafers touched the ground in the next stall. 

     He said with a wispy rasp, "Name?” Good lord, he smelled so bad. Like rotten meat.  This was a zombie. Usually they mill around like cattle. Scientists say that once in a while, one sort of glitches, and gets frustrating vague memories of their past life. It’s the only time they ever got this mad. Perhaps the only time they felt human again. 

     Maintaining silence seemed the best strategy. I noodled with my phone to draw my focus away. 

     “Tell me my name?” He insisted. 

     “I don’t know your name. I’m sorry.” 

      He slammed the stall wall. It was leaning down on me now.     

     "Please stop!" I yanked up my pants and rushed out of the stall.  

     The man's stall door was open too. He battered at the wall until he realized I now stood before him. His face. Good Lord, zombies decompose so fast. His shirt was open, showing holes of rot in his stomach, his right arm, and his face. I hated the stomach one the most. I had a very good look at his innards.  

     He sprung at me. After I stepped aside, he landed with his head against the sink. The crunch didn't seem to deter him. He rose again.  

     He tore the paper towel dispenser off the wall and whacked me mightily over the head. I stumbled, but didn't drop. "What the hell, man?" I read that every once in a while, a zombie goes crazy angry, without really knowing why. 

     High school football remained in my muscle memory. Pumping my legs, I hit him low with my shoulder and cracked him against the wall. He slid to the ground. I held him down, then had an idea. I said, "Stop struggling! I want to try something."

     "What?" He looked at me dumbly.

     "I can help you!"  Although I didn’t say it, I am a Christian who believes in miracles.

     The surly zombie tried to push me off as I moved in. Screaming, "Hands OFF." 

     "This is worth a try." I pressed my mouth against his. His lips felt like a dry, mangled, sausage. He was toothless. Zombiousness is a medical condition that’s not spread through bites or air.  Don’t believe the movies. 

     I tipped his head back and covered my mouth with his. I performed CPR. 

     The area that I was supposed to apply pressure on his chest was already open with the hole. So, I performed compressions a little above the spot, hoping for the best. It was stressful for sure, but he was already technically dead.  

    He slapped my face with his meaty bloated fingers, and pushed himself away. "Enough!"  

    To my relief, and also my growing horror, his chest was rising and falling. I had done this to impress my son. The maybe-still-likes-zombies-guy. Now, after the fact, I realized the horror I may have caused. I’m going to make this poor man remember and then lose his memories all over again when he re-dies. 

     I said, "You're okay." He wasn't. 

     Then he laughed like a revving motor. Like someone was squeezing the throttle. 

     "I had two boys," he said, "Malcolm and Edgar. One wife. Pearl."

     Oh shit. I know what I did, but still, holy shit. Am I the asshole my son already thinks I am? Or the greatest, coolest father around? I revived a damn zombie. 

     I screamed out, "Can someone call 9-1-1? Somebody, please!" I wasn’t sure if they could even help him. I could see his insides. They were moving, pulsating, beating. But for how long?

     "My name is Ian. It's all coming back to me now."

---

     The bathroom door opened. It was my Caleb. Sweet, tall string-bean son, now looking at me like he was four again with wide, awed eyes. Just like years ago, when I could still wow him. He said, "That was you screaming? I'll call, Dad, right now."

     I smiled and backed away from the body. I said, "Look what your dad did. Reviving a damn zombie. Pretty bad ass, am I right?" I'm a terrible person. You don't give a guy his memories back, just to see him lose them all over again.

     Ian said as he tried to cover the hole in his chest, "I can't. I can't hold this in. I can feel my heart beating. I'm having memories. L-life is precious. Thank you." He sucked air in, and then I heard a flutter inside him.

     All this to impress my son. Because he used to like zombies. I had never heard of anyone who brought one back. Now here we were. 

     I said quietly to Ian, "I'm so sorry."

     He waved me off. "That's fine. You meant well. I know this can’t last."

     From behind me, Caleb said, "Dad. Soon as I said zombie, 9-1-1 put me on hold." No wonder. He'll probably be told to call 1-1-1. 

     Which means Zombie Pickup.

     A crowd amassed around the door. I heard nameless voices.

    "Saved a zombie? Who'd want to do that?"

    My son answered, "My dad did. That's him in there."

   "That's like giving mouth to mouth to a pigeon."

     My son didn't argue that point.

     "CPR? On a zombie? So what? He isn’t the first one to do it, you know. Just last week. Right here, in fact.”

     My critics finally stopped talking. Maybe thinking there was nothing more to see here. I heard my son’s tone drop back to his jaded self, “Yeah. This isn’t a big deal at all.”

     Ian said, “Your kid is an asshole.”

     I shot him an angry look; store personnel took over the scene. 

     I stepped outside into the main store. I could hear walkie-talkies. I said, "I suppose they’ll take care of it now. Let's go."

     A few minutes later, I heard on a speaker, "Security, please report to the back dock. Thank you." I never did see Ian hauled out.

    I shrugged for my son's sake, while I watched the crowds in the store a little more closely. Ian had assaulted me just minutes ago. Would he do it again?

---

     There were easily two dozen zombies shambling around outside when we had pulled up to shop. Doctors don't know how to cure them. Society ran out of places to house them. So, they wander around. Some dead lie down like good corpses. Others don’t.  A poet, whose name I can’t remember, said “those who stroll have unrested souls.”   

     We were still in the store; my son walked away from me. 

     "Caleb?" I said. "Caleb, hold up!"  I worked my way through the crowd. I caught him by the arm. Did he nearly jerk it away?

     Behind me, store security ran down the hall again and into the bathroom. One said, "No, he didn’t return here."

     Ian disappeared. 

   ---

     I told Caleb, "Well, we might as well pay and go." The cart with the school supplies stood several feet away. I said, "How about this?  Here, you take the keys and go listen to the radio." 

     “Dad, I got music on my phone. “

     “That’s not lost on me, son. But, you can veg out in the car. You still like that, right?”

     He grunted at me, non-committal. One day he's going to drive away from me into a life of an adult. Not today, I reminded myself. Today was still pregnant with possibilities.      

     A guard squeezed my arm. "Zombie must have taken off." He ruffled my son's hair, "Pretty cool your dad did that, ain't it."

     The guard and I met eyes, and I knew he too was a fellow part-time dad just looking for a win. This time he extended his charity to me. If I over-enthused with a thank you, I’d come across sounding needy. I mumbled back, "Hey, thanks." And I walked on. 

    Caleb mumbled out a sentence, but all I could hear was the word "sucks." He walked out to the car. I watched as he climbed in. 

    I stood in checkout line Number Six. I felt fine bagging my own stuff. My phone pinged. I picked it up. "Dad?" Caleb said. "He's getting in the car!" I could hear the ding, ding, ding of the open door.

     "It's Ian?"

     "Yeah, that guy you helped." I could hear my son kicking already. "Dad, DAD!"                 

     Of course I screamed as I ran to my car. I'm a father.

   ---

     I flew through the store's open doors. "Ian, NO!" I had a Ford Fiesta parked not far outside.  

     Ian took the keys out of my son's hands. He had locked the doors by the time I reached the car. I feared this man who so savagely attacked me might do the same to my son. He stayed on the driver’s side, while my son retreated as far as he could, with his back against the passenger-side door.

     A crowd gathered around as I battered the roof. The bastard understood pounding. "Ian, let me in!"

     He punched the ceiling of my car. Again and again. He screamed. "Listen to what I tell the boy!"

      I held my hands away to show him I'm backing off. "Don't hurt him."

      Ian pointed a rotting finger at Caleb. Thankfully he yelled so I could hear. "Your dad saved my life a little while ago. You know what? I am a father. Two grown boys. They were ungrateful. Just like you. I forgot that for a while. And I'm telling you, I'll likely forget two minutes from now. My organs are slowing, boy. And I’ll be right back to where I was just minutes ago. Among the roaming-like-cattle dead. Be nice to your dad. Some of us don't have any family anymore."

     I yelled, "Ian don't!" I would never say this to Caleb. Scaring him straight. But, I can't remember the last time I heard an adult vouch for my kindness. Ian didn't look like he was going to lunge at Caleb. He sat with his back to the driver's side door, giving my son plenty of space to hear his words.

     Ian kept on. "And I bet, out of everyone in this whole world, I bet you want your father in this car right now, don't you?"

     My son nodded fervently.

      I had an extra key tucked in my wallet. I could have hopped in at any time. Am I a terrible father for hanging back?

     "Do you know how long I’ve been alive after your dad performed CPR on me?"  

     "Don’t know."

     "We’re at five minutes. Isn't that a father you want on your side? Be grateful, son. Because in the next minute or two, I’m going to forget everything all over again.” He tapped his forehead, “It’s already leaving.” 

     With that, Ian the zombie ended his life lesson to my only child. 

     He unlocked the door and stepped out. He walked past me, even when I tried to whisper, "Thank you."

     An over-the-shoulder, unsure, "Yeah?"  He dawdled off in no particular direction that made sense to me. I could only guess that he was dead again. 

    I slid in and turned to my wide-eyed son and told him with a total lack of warmth, "Buckle in."  

     He was terrified; that moment felt golden to me. For a brief second, I became the cool-headed hero again. "You're okay, son. We are both okay, fine."

    "G-good," he stammered. "Can we go home?"  

     Meaning my place? I smelled a scant scent of urine coming off my son. He had pissed himself. I remember changing his diaper when he was young. I even miss those days. 

     We drove past three zombies and motored through the poor side of town, up to the narrow armored bridge where the undead can't cross. 

     We pulled into my driveway. My son looked at me and said, "Can I stay with you for the week?" His teeth chattered as if he were cold.

     My heart hippity-hopped inside my chest with glee. I kept my cool. I didn't want to be a needy dad. "Of course, son." And just like that, my life was good again. 

     …End. 

By Steven Roisum

From: United States