“Oh my god, these fucking Zombies!” Ilusha screamed at the top of his lungs.

A decrepit old woman in a motorized wheelchair zoomed past him, nearly running over his feet. A grey haired man in brown slacks jogged after her wiping the sweat from his forehead. He paid no attention to the two guys as he chased after the dead woman. “Ever since the dead rose this country has gone to shit! Watch where you’re going you dead bitch!” The wheelchair bound corpse raised a hand and folded down every brittle digit except one. “Dude, that dead lady just flipped you the bird,” said Damian twisting the end of a hand rolled cigarette into his mouth and lighting it in a ritualistic fashion. He laughed choking on his first inhalation of the cigarette and exhaled a huge cloud of smoke into Ilusha’s face. Illusha cupped his hands over his mouth and nose and shut his eyes. The pair sat on the front steps of a brown brick building on a tree-lined street. The sun shone through the clouds overhead littering the ground with pockets of sunshine. They sat in the shade. It was a beautiful day, the first of what Illusha had hoped to be many.

“Forget about the zombies. I saw Cindy last night at the bar. She got this gig over at that vegan bakery. She brought some of these banging ass cupcakes made out of air or some shit –“

“Fuck that! These zombies! They eat cow brains and chicken bones! I saw this guy going around digging in the trash for the feed-the-zombies drive. There are living people starving, feed the living!”

“I know what you’re saying, but hey if you’re mother rose from the dead you might have a little more compassion”

“No! She’s dead. It’s just not natural. The world is overpopulated as it is. Let the dead stay buried”

“You’re a zombiephobe, Ill,” Damian threw his head back and chuckled again blowing a cloud of smoke into the atmosphere.

“Those things’ll kill you, ya’ know?”

“Yea, I know. I’m trying to quit”

“I wasn’t talking about the cig, Dame”

“C’mon Illusha! You’re making gross generalizations based on the media’s portrayal of zombies. They’re pretty weak, like babies. There muscles are atrophied if they were kept in tact. They fear us more than we should fear them.”

“How do you explain the dead bitch on wheels then? She coulda took me out!”

“And then you would have come back and I’d be stuck taking care of you. That bitch!”

Damian flicked his cigarette into the road and watched it smolder into ash. Illusha hopped up dusting off the backside of his jeans.