Breathers (23 page)

I don't know what she's talking about, until I realize that I must have spoken out loud.

“Ow is iss ossibul?”

“How is what possible?” asks Rita.

The fact that she understands me nearly brings me to tears.

I point to my throat. “Iss,” I say, then point down at the erection below my waist. “An at.”

A wicked smile crosses Rita's face. “I'll tell you what I think about this,” she says, brushing my throat with her fingers before pulling the covers back. “But first, let me take care of that.”

I don't know if it's because I haven't had sex in nearly five months or if the undead have less self-control, but Rita takes care of me in less than five minutes.

“Yummy,” she says, returning to the crook of my arm.

Yummy indeed.

And to think that, a month ago, my biggest thrill was Dinner and a Movie on TBS.

We lay on the bed in silence, Rita playing with my chest hair and me rethinking my position on God, because if my existence before today was hell, then this is most definitely heaven.

I look at Rita, with her dark hair and her pale skin, with her soft, young lips and the way her fingers brush against my rotting flesh, and I'm overwhelmed with her sexuality. I hope my dead wife understands that just because I've had sex with a living corpse, that doesn't mean I don't cherish her memory. But there comes a point where you have to let go of the past in order to embrace the future.

I'm not sure what surprises me more—my lack of guilt regarding my newfound romance or that I'm starting to sound like Helen.

“I think I know why your voice is returning,” says Rita into my chest.

“Ow?” I say, hoping it sounds like a question and not an exclamation of pain.

“Do you remember the first time you felt different?” asks Rita.

I don't understand.

She raises up again on one elbow and looks at me. I can see the stitches on her throat. They're sublime.

“That Sunday after Halloween,” she says. “Why did you go for a walk down to the village?”

I don't know, I say in Andy-speak. I just had to get out.

“You felt restless?”

I nod.

“And emboldened?”

I nod again.

“You felt different.”

I think back to that Sunday, to what ultimately drove me to leave the wine cellar, and nod a third time.

Rita sits up, her nipples pink and hard, and reaches across me to the bedside table, her breasts brushing against my chest. I feel a now familiar stirring beneath my waist and wonder if I can last more than five minutes this time.

Rita returns to her position next to me and holds the empty Mason jar in her hand.

“We each consumed a jar the night we met Ray,” she says. “Jerry didn't eat any that night. Just you and me.”

I nod absently, thinking about how good the venison tasted, how juicy it was, how much I wanted another one when I'd finished.

“How many jars have you had?” she asks.

I think for a minute, adding up my trips to see Ray and the jars of Rapture he's sent home with me, and hold up four fingers, then add a thumb.

“I've had three,” says Rita. “And ever since that first jar, I've felt something growing inside of me. An understanding. An awareness …”

“An awakening,” I say, though it comes out “A a-akeknee.”

“Exactly. Now look at this,” she says, holding out her wrist.

I notice, for the first time, that the stitches on her right wrist are gone. A raw, healing scar remains.

“The last few days it's been itching,” she says. “This morning, the stitches just fell out.”

I stare at her wrist, brush my finger against the pink flesh of the scar, and immediately Mr. Stiffy returns. This realization isn't lost on Rita, who swings one leg across and straddles me, her knees pressing against my waist, her thighs hovering inches above me.

“You know what I think?” she whispers, her lips brushing against my ear.

I shake my head. I can barely focus on my own thoughts, let alone figure out what she's thinking.

“I don't think it's venison in those jars.”

“Ut is it?” I ask, though I think I already know the answer. I've probably known it intuitively from the beginning and just allowed myself to think otherwise. But instead of feeling disgusted or sick to my stomach, I find myself craving more.

“Breathers,” she says, whispering the word into my ear as her thighs slide down to meet my hips and I'm once again enveloped in a warmth that shouldn't exist yet exceeds any carnal pleasure I've ever experienced.

My senses are overwhelmed.

I forget about the empty Mason jar and the human flesh it once contained and I focus on Rita, on the sensation of her body pressing against mine. I turn my head and find her wrist, the one that's newly healed, and suck on the scar. Rita moans and asks me to do it again. She says “Suck on me” and I have to think of something to keep from losing control right then.

I was never much of a sports fan, so thinking about baseball
won't do the trick. And dead dogs in a ditch is just a little too close to home. So instead, I find myself running through the titles of as many zombie movies as I can think of. I barely make it through the first three George Romero films before I explode.

ho wants to start tonight?” asks Helen.

Rita and I look at each other and smirk. Jerry sits next to us, his road rash clearer and less inflamed than it was several days ago, like poison oak that's finally turned the corner, though he doesn't seem to notice. Tom sits across from Jerry wearing a pissy expression, his right arm two inches shorter than his left and the knuckles covered with black hair. Naomi and Carl are next to Tom looking pretty much the same as always—Naomi with her sagging eye socket and Carl picking at his open knife wounds—while Leslie, the only consistent return newbie, is knitting a blanket.

On the chalkboard is the phrase:

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF.

For the first time since the accident, I think I actually do.

Once the realization of what we were eating sunk in, I had a few moments where I felt a little weird about the idea of consuming human flesh. It's more a question of morality than guilt. After all, I'm only a little over four months removed from Breather status. But considering the transformation I've gone through since I tasted my first jar of Ray's Resplendent
Rapture, I'm willing to look the other way on the whole morality issue.

Over the past few days, Rita and I have discovered that the rehabilitative effects of eating Breather extend beyond our physical injuries. We each feel changes taking place inside of us, inside our bodies and our heads, as if the wiring has been shorted out for the past few months and circuits are beginning to fire again. Slowly but surely, the power is starting to come back on.

We've also discovered that zombie sex is phenomenally superior to Breather sex.

Think MP3 compared to 8-track.

Think first class compared to coach.

Think filet mignon compared to ground beef.

At first I just figured it was the excitement of experiencing physical pleasure again. Except Rita noticed it, too. I'm not sure if it was before or after she had an orgasm that lasted for ten minutes, but I think that was pretty much the clincher for her. For me it was when we had sex five times in one hour.

I really need to work on my stamina.

Still, it's like I'm seventeen again, sneaking over to my girlfriend's house to have sex while her mom is at work. Or sneaking my girlfriend into the wine cellar of my parents’ house while they sit upstairs oblivious to Rita's muffled cries of passion. Honestly, I doubt my parents would care if they knew. Just so long as I'm not out protesting for my civil rights or trying to ride public transportation.

“Would anyone like to share something personal with the group?” asks Helen.

Rita glances at me, the way she looks at me when she wants to try a new sexual position, and I let out a single burst of laughter.

“Is it just me,” says Naomi, “or is something going on?”

“What do you mean?” asks Helen.

Naomi looks around the room, her one eye settling on Rita and me a moment. “I don't know exactly,” she says. “Something just feels different. I feel different.”

“Yeah, you know what? I feel it, too,” says Jerry. “Only I thought I was stoned or something.”

“Me, too,” says Tom, nodding. The fingers of his shorter right hand twitch. “Well, I mean, not the stoned part.”

Rita and I have had three and five jars of Breather, respectively, while by my count Tom and Jerry have each had two. No one else in the group has had more than one. But they don't know what Rita and I know.

“I don't think I feel any different,” says Leslie. “But then, I'm new at this. What should I be feeling?”

No one gives her an answer.

“Carl,” says Helen. “Do you feel anything out of the ordinary?”

“I don't
feel
anything,” says Carl.

“That's nothing new,” says Naomi.

Carl ignores her. “But I notice that Jerry's face is clearer and Andy doesn't seem to be walking with as much of a limp. And Rita's not wearing any makeup.”

She's not. Her face is pale and unadorned. She's wearing blue jeans and a red turtleneck sweater that covers her neck and wrists. But instead of concealing her stitches, she's hiding the fact that she's healing.

Everyone stares at Rita, who giggles, then they stare at Jerry, who says, “What?”

“Is this true, Jerry?” asks Helen. “Is your skin improving?”

“I don't know,” says Jerry, picking at his face. A scab comes off and falls to the floor, leaving a pink patch of flesh from where it fell. “Maybe.”

Helen walks over to Jerry and studies his face, raising his chin with her fingers and then turning his head from side to side.

“What have you been up to?” asks Helen.

“Nothin’,” says Jerry. “I swear.”

Helen glances at us. Rita smiles and I say, “On't ook at ee.”

Everyone's mouths drop open but no one says a word. Finally, Helen says, “Oh dear,” and staggers to her chair, where Leslie and Naomi help her sit down.

“Dude,” says Jerry. “Have you been able to talk this whole time?”

I shake my head.

“When did you regain your ability to speak?” asks Leslie.

“Ast upple eeks,” I say.

“But how?” asks Naomi. “How is that possible? You're dead. We're all dead.”

“Undead,” says Carl.

“Whatever,” says Naomi. “Andy shouldn't be able to regain his voice, your road rash shouldn't be able to improve, and Rita …”

Rita pulls her sleeve up and holds her healed wrist up for everyone to see.

“Holy shit,” says Jerry.

“That's impossible,” says Tom.

“Apparently not,” says Leslie, who seems to be much more accepting of these revelations than anyone else.

“What the hell is going on?” asks Naomi, standing up, hands on her hips. “What have you three been doing?”

“They've been eating Breather,” says Helen, her voice flat.

Rita and I exchange surprised looks.

An awkward silence follows. If this were a scene in a movie, somewhere in the distance you'd hear a dog bark.

“What do Breathers taste like?” asks Leslie.

“How should I know?” says Jerry. “I haven't eaten any.”

“Yes, you have,” says Rita.

“No, I haven't,” says Jerry. “I think I'd know if I'd eaten Breather.”

I reach into my backpack and remove an empty Mason jar of Ray's Resplendent Rapture.

Jerry looks at the jar in my hand and says, “You're kidding.”

I shake my head.

“He gave each of us a jar,” says Naomi. “Are you telling us we all ate Breather?”

Tom is suddenly out of his chair and running for the bathroom, his left hand covering his mouth as he makes little gagging sounds.

“Actually,” says Leslie, “I thought it was quite good.”

“Why didn't you tell us what was in those jars?” asks Naomi.

“We didn't know,” says Rita. “We didn't figure it out until a few days ago.”

“But how do you know for sure that it's Breather and not deer meat?” says Jerry. “Did you talk to Ray?”

Ray wasn't home when we stopped by for a visit. But in the ashes of his fire, we did find a human femur, which I'm guessing he didn't use to toast marshmallows.