Page 62 of Doomsdate

I pull out my machete with one hand, my Taser pole still clutched in the other.

Everett glances over at me, then frowns. “What’s wrong?” The question is laced with fear but also disappointment, as though our excursion is already doomed. “Is something wrong?”

I pivot on the spot, searching for eyes on us, glowing or otherwise. But it’s only eleven, and the zombies present are fully withdrawn, their eyes as lifeless as their bodies should be. Chicken doesn’t seem to be concerned with them at all. “Do you think someone’s watching us?”

Everett pulls in a breath through his nose, then exhales. “Honestly? No. The city is weirdly empty, Maisie. Freakishly so.”

“What do you mean?” It seems about as populated as any other nonresidential area we’ve been through.

Everett bites his lips in. “Historically, any time there was drama in the capital, National Guardsmen were sent in. Extra police. Armed security everywhere you looked. The Metro stations, the lawns—you’d see people with big guns standing around, watching. But I haven’t seen a single guard since we got here. Shouldn’t some of them be zombies by now? Why didn’t the government try to protect the city and keep order once people started turning?”

I frown. “That is weird.”

I rotate on the spot, Taser still ready, but I have to concede the point. There’s simply nobody here. “You’re right,” I finally say. “Probably just in my head.”

Ten minutes later, we’re standing in front of the heavy glass doors to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. I feel almost giddy as I grasp the metal handle and pull, the door hinging open to let us inside the sun-drenched entrance hall. “Unlocked!”

Everett blows out a breath and turns on the Tasers he’s clutching, one for each hand. Weapons sparking, we make our way across the hall, our footsteps echoing against the high ceilings. Uniformed staff and guards stand listlessly in their own exhibition—Unpaid Zombie Labor in the American Workforce. All told, there are maybe five or six visible, two standing sentry at the metal detectors, wands dangling from their fingers, two trapped within a great, circular welcome desk—one the flesh-eater, the other the flesh-eatee—and the remainder hovering near the entrances to the various exhibits. A true skeleton crew, the hall devoid of any actual tourists. I guess the big benefit of a diarrhea virus spawning the zombie apocalypse is that everybody who could possibly stay home did. I pluck a map from the stand and gently pry the roll of stickers from the welcome-desk zombie’s fingers.

Why is she here? Was she out of sick leave or something?

“Here you go.” I slap one on Everett’s chest, momentarily distracted by the lack of give on his pectoral muscle, then one on my own. “Now we’re officially visitors.”

I watch for a smile, a huff, anything to show that my glib behavior is working on Everett, but his eyes remain glued on the security guard to the right of the map stand, who looks admittedly dodgy. Even Chicken hisses at him, a response usually reserved for the more active ones. I zap the guard in the heart, and he crumples to the floor without fanfare. Though his eyes are dull, his mouth is painted with dried gore. This zombie’s eaten someone, and maybe I’m just an evil vegan, but I don’t abide the feeders.

I step over the body. “So, what’s good to see here?”

Everett’s lips finally quirk. “Transportation. Hands down.”

We pass model kitchens and gowns of first ladies and furry puppets in cases that Everett gets inexplicably teary-eyed at, murmuring “There’ll never be Sesame Street again” until I drag him toward the giant steam locomotive that lords over the transportation wing’s entrance. The zombie staff are more active back here, deep in the museum’s halls away from windows and sunlight, but Chicken spots them every time. Her hissing and their faintly glowing eyes and rasping vocalizations give them away, and their shuffling steps are still slow.

They’re also exquisitely dumb.

When a stout former woman in a museum uniform lurches from a corner, I yank Everett up a short flight of steps and into the cab of the Jupiter steam locomotive. Try as she might, she cannot climb the three steps to reach us, or open the gate to the cab, either. A simple poke in the heart, and she’s down before the adrenaline even reaches my bloodstream. Two more guards follow, to the same end—no steps, no latches, no handles. If a zombie has to do more than shuffle along a flat plane of existence, it’s out of luck.

“This is weirdly comforting,” Everett says, watching the fourth and final guard face-plant beneath the Jupiter’s pistons. Now that the wing is cleared of threats, Everett begins to loosen up more, too, slipping behind the wheel of a curvaceous 1948 silver sedan and tipping an imaginary hat to me.

“Ma’am,” he greets me from the rolled-down window, before stubbing out a fake cigarette. “Don’t blame me for this zombie apocalypse, I voted for Marilyn Monroe.”

I laugh as I board a real-deal Conestoga wagon, though I didn’t understand a thing he just said and won’t ask, either. I’m too busy admiring the sturdy wooden bench and struts. Find some mules, and this wouldn’t be a bad option if my rig gives out.

The hour passes in a blur of Americana, the occasional zombie guard, and bizarrely, stuffed animals, once we make our way next door to the Natural History Museum.

“It’s like a zoo. That’s dead.” I frown at the tiger snarling down at me, its pounce as frozen in place as the door guard who did not check my bag, despite what the signs said. “Is everything here already dead?”

“Yep, pretty much.” Everett walks up behind me, the warmth of his body touching me, even though he doesn’t. It raises the small, soft hairs on my neck, the skin behind my ears tingling. I’m struck with the desire for him to hug me again, but from behind.

With sex.

“Well, maybe not everything,” he says, his voice its own tickle against my cheek. I turn to question him, stopping when I realize that any more would put his lips in kissing distance. He seems to be thinking the same thing as his gaze moves from my mouth to my eyes. For the first time since we left his sister’s house, he smiles, really smiles, a genuine, hopeful thing, and my insides flutter as if my organs are trying to flirt with him, too.

“Come on.” He scoops Chicken up to his shoulder and takes my hand, and together we walk past tall giraffes stooped low, bowing zebras, a harassed-looking hippo. All animals I’ve seen in books and pictures, but never in person. Here, stuffed and on display, they seem both realer and more fantastical than they’ve ever been. This lion that once prowled the savannas of Africa, now gutted and made to pose like a king over this exhibit. It stares out with large, decorative black eyes that someone put there. Because it was their job.

Growing up in isolation may have made me weird, but what is these people’s excuse?

We don’t stop until we reach the entrance of the Butterfly Pavilion. There are no guards on duty here, so there’s no reason to let go of each other’s hand. Everett hangs on tight as he holds the first door open for me, then the second.

And then, there’s life. Beautiful life.