Chapters | Dead Love

12. Born-again Zombie (...

“There. Zombie or not, all ready to go. You now carry the chip that could bring down the juggernaut and stop the monster that has sold you down the river. Not me. Christian. Don’t run from me, girl; it will make things much worse. We have a secret, you and I . . . oh, yes, and...

12. Born-again Zombie (...

By this time, the doctor had recovered some of his aplomb. “This is amazing,” he whispered, his eyes running the length of my body, pausing at my breasts slick with apricot-colored puke. “This girl was pronounced dead two days ago. She was scheduled for autopsy this evening....

12. Born-again Zombie (...

I relaxed completely. He pulled, and we all fell over—two nurses, an intern, a janitor, and I. We lay there for a moment or two, without moving, like the severed appendages of a butchered starfish, all pointing in different directions on the shiny lemon-colored linoleum in the rank...

12. Born-again Zombie (...

My mouth fell open, one hand reached involuntarily toward the wall. I could feel my breath quicken, my heart beating faster, so fast it was dizzying. The image, the beautiful image of the body, began to darken and fade. A thick numbness spread through my legs. I felt them buckle....

12. Born-again Zombie (...

With one hand I wiped my face clean. I groped toward the wall for support, found none, so I stumbled across the room, bumping into tables, knocking over trays. They clattered to the floor, which was also shockingly cold. Clumsily threading my way through what seemed like an obstacle...

12. Born-again Zombie (...

Like many victims of cerebral trauma, I was reborn with a kind of amnesia. Was it a relief to leave my old “self “ with all its sorrow and disappointment behind? In some ways, yes, but I must tell you that I’ve never felt more isolated than I did when I returned from the dead,...

12. Born-again Zombie (...

What I was aware of at first was pain. The pain came from the light that flashed on the other side of my eyelids. Then the smell of my body rose up around me, sickeningly sweet and cloying. That nearly undid me. I thought I would vomit. I struggled, trying to raise myself up and...

12. Born-again Zombie...

After I died, I . . . I woke up. I woke up on a table in the hospital morgue, third in line for an autopsy. I woke up a whole new person . . . or a fragment of an old person. By that I mean I wasn’t exactly “myself.” Who was I? I’m not sure. It was odd, as if I were on some...

11. Blame it on the Fug...

I had never eaten fugu, but I did like to follow Ryu’s lead. It was fun doing things with the yakuza. He was dangerous, too, like the fugu. That excited me. But this particular blowfish dinner had it in for me, and I passed out as I sipped at my cool, milk-colored sake, as I prepared...

11. Blame it on the Fug...

Ryu was especially fond of fugu. He loved the flush that suffused his body as his heart went into overdrive, the slight mist of perspiration that formed on his upper lip and brow, the gentle numbing of his extremities and the way the world around him seemed to soften and bend as he...