Warm Bodies: A Novel by Isaac Marion

Author:Isaac Marion
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Thrillers, General, Suspense, Fiction
ISBN: 9781476717463
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2011-11-02T07:00:00+00:00

SLOW STEPS. Mud under boots. Look nowhere else. Strange mantras loop through my head. Old bearded mutterings from dark alleys. Where are you going, Perry? Foolish child. Brainless boy. Where? Every day the universe grows larger, darker, colder. I stop in front of a black door. A girl lives here in this metal house. Do I love her? Hard to say anymore. But she is all that’s left. The final red sun in an ever-expanding emptiness.

I walk into the house and find her sitting on the staircase, arms crossed over her knees. She puts a finger to her lips. “Dad,” she whispers to me.

I glance up the staircase toward the general’s bedroom. I hear his voice slurring in the dimness.

“This picture, Julie. The water park, remember the water park? Had to haul ten buckets up for just one slide. Twenty minutes of work for ten seconds of fun. Seemed worth it back then, didn’t it? I liked watching your face when you flew out of the tube. You looked just like her, even back then.”

Julie stands up quietly, moves toward the front door.

“You’re all her, Julie. You aren’t me, you’re her. How could she do it?”

I open the door and back out. Julie follows me, soft steps, no sound.

“How could she be so weak?” the man says in a voice like steel melting. “How could she leave us here?”

We walk in silence. The drizzling rain beads in our hair and we shake it out like dogs. We come to Colonel Rosso’s house. Rosso’s wife opens the door, looks at Julie’s face, and hugs her. We walk inside into the warmth.

I find Rosso in the living room, sipping coffee, peering through his glasses at a water-stained old book. While Julie and Mrs. Rosso murmur in the kitchen, I sit down across from the colonel.

“Perry,” he says.

“Colonel.”

“How are you holding up?”

“I’m alive.”

“A good start. How are you settling into the home?”

“I despise it.”

Rosso is quiet for a moment. “What’s on your mind?”

I search for words. I seem to have forgotten most of them. Finally, quietly, I say, “He lied to me.”

“How so?”

“He said we were fixing things, and if we didn’t give up everything might turn out okay.”

“He believed that. I think I do, too.”

“But then he died.” My voice trembles and I fight to squeeze it tight. “And it was senseless. No battle, no noble sacrifice, just a stupid work accident that could have happened to anyone anywhere, any time in history.”

“Perry . . .”

“I don’t understand it, sir. What’s the point of trying to fix a world we’re in so briefly? Where’s the meaning in all that work if it’s just going to disappear? Without any warning? A fucking brick on the head?”

Rosso says nothing. The low voices in the kitchen become audible in our silence, so they drop to whispers, trying to hide from the colonel what I’m sure he already knows. Our little world is far too tired to care about the crimes of its leaders.

“I want to join Security,” I announce.

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