Poe wasn’t sure how one goes about embracing a zombie version of their redheaded childhood crush. He’d never been given a script or a set of guidelines on how to deal with something like this—when one is faced with their unrequited love once again.

  In fact, he wasn’t even sure if he could call it unrequited love, considering how Bella was unaware that Poe had been in love with her before she’d died.

  Back on campus, much of his free time had been spent reading The Harvard Crimson, where it had become something of a perennial tick of the student editor to print the official CDC zombie guidelines on the back of each new issue.

  No, one couldn’t get a bug from a zombie. No, one does not simply turn into a zombie when bitten. We’ve tried that one out before, guys, trust us. The zombies aren’t out to get you, trust us. Yes, we’re living in a strange, new world now, but zombies will be a part of that world from now on—like midterms. Get used to it.

  The smug, self-righteous tone turned him scornful. But slowly, when he’d burnt out after reading one drab book or another on the lives of Locke or Wittgenstein, he began to memorize the routine and habits that the CDC expected of him when he had little else to do.

  He’d wondered if there was any philosopher who’d written about such things—what would they do in a moment like this?

  The term philosophical zombies still hadn't been hijacked by those who spent their free time thinking themselves into a headache over consciousness. He could still salvage it, and create another branch of philosophy—one that dealt with the ethics and meta-ethics of crushing hard on a zombified version of a redheaded woman.

  And Bella was a young woman now, having grown in stature to nearly match his own lean 5’10” intellectual frame, despite spending the past decade trapped underneath the ground.

  Perhaps he could resurrect what was left of Locke and Wittgenstein in the future too, and ask them what they would do in a situation like this—only to be dismissed, and learn that they just wanted to be left alone by pestering young intellectuals. A trait they shared with the same academics Poe had run into when he asked for an extension on a paper or two he’d forgotten about while juggling several different club responsibilities in life.

  If only there was another choice—one that didn’t involve him rushing across and taking her in his hands, or falling to his knees and thanking whatever god or demon had allowed him to succeed in this terrible, dark ploy of his.

  Then Bella reached out with a gentle, delicate hand cursed by rotten veins, and he found himself guiding it to his left cheek.

  He let her ragged fingertips dig deep into his skin. A few drops of blood came out.

  He’d taught himself to do this back when he became obsessed with lucid dreaming and the endless possibilities it brought. Even then—long before tales of resurrection had become commonplace in the modern world—he had still been reaching out for Bella.

  The blood dripped down, slithering all the way to the ends of his white collar.

  It was real.

  It was Bella.

  There were, of course, pleasantries at first. Small talk Poe wished he could push aside, if only to let Bella be at the centre of his life again.

  Hello, how are you? Yes, it’s me—Poe. Yes, it’s been ten years or so since you’ve been dead. Yes, I know, the world has changed. Yes, Armstrong did make it to the moon. No, there hasn’t been a nuclear war yet. And yes, it was the Soviets scavenging around Afghanistan that did the trick—not the divine second coming we were promised back in class.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  It had all come so quickly that Poe didn’t have the time to press on any of the thornier, more complex questions he’d once imagined asking. He didn’t want to. He just wanted to leave this place—this graveyard—and go with Bella somewhere else. Somewhere she'd be safe. Somewhere far from nosy neighbours, curtain-twitchers, or the sort of people who might feel they were doing their civic duty by alerting the neighbourhood police about a zombie couple scampering out of the graveyard, possibly in the act of some forbidden black magic.

  A practice, Poe noted grimly, that had already been banned in pink states—though technically still permitted in green ones. Massachusetts, thankfully, was one of the latter. Cameron was about an hour and some change away from the Virginia state lines. They needed to go now.

  “Very sophisticated,” Bella whistled, eyeing his car. Poe didn't think it so. He thought it was incredibly beat down instead. His ride was a 1969 Dodge Charger, worn out from years of drag racing across the Bible Belt. It was all that he could afford with meagre savings after university had slashed through the rest.

  “The guy who had it before must’ve really liked The Dukes of Hazzard,” he mumbled, cheeks reddening.

  The Confederate flag on the roof had long since peeled away, but the car still clung on to that burnt orange, juvenile charm.

  “The Dukes of what now?” Bella asked, visibly confused.

  Right. Poe sighed. Ten years buried under gravel meant Bella wasn’t going to get every pop culture reference he talked of while trying to maintain conversation inside his shitbox of a car. Still, he would play the part of the gentle driver—a role he’d always wished he could’ve played when she was alive.

  Bella nodded with visible strain as he opened the passenger-side door and helped her in. He pretended not to notice the gut-wrenching smell she emitted as she passed.

  It was only the beginning of many things he would pretend not to notice, now that he was living with her again—anew.

  The farther Poe drove out of the Bible Belt, the more he realized Bella’s music taste was still cemented back in those rowdy days of cow tipping and barn hopping they'd had together. His had been too at one point, until he’d grown tired and decided to join the trend of southern rock fans as the 1970s neared their end.

  Music had underwent a long journey since Bella was gone. Frustrated, she fumbled with the radio dial, always turning it delicately, careful not to twist too hard in case her fingers broke apart like rotting, brittle glass.

  It was such a sudden jump that Bella felt she'd missed a 1000 years of musical evolution. Disco was plentiful, even though, like zombies, it had apparently died and was now being resurrected by a handful of devoted fanatics. Gospel and soul still felt ethereal and floated through the tinny sound speakers, but there was nothing on air that would cause her to think back on those warm fuzzy days of partying with friends while tumbling over haystacks.

  "There's a few cassette tapes in the glove box," Poe said. He was trying to do the math in his head, wondering if Bella had been around when they first appeared. This was quite difficult, considering one eye lingered on the dark roads while another kept cautious watch on his zombie crush, hoping that she herself suddenly didn't turn into mush.

  Cassettes had first come out in the mid 60's, and then gradually found their way into cars by the early 70's. Poe could still remember that sudden rush of excitement when he realised he could play whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, without being shackled to the whims of a smug, small town radio host.

  Bella rummaged through them, and despite missing the early adoption window, at least understood how they worked. Like a child groping for sweets in a candy cane bowl she left her hands go through the collection, until she'd settled on one by a band she'd never even heard of before.

  "Hawkwind," She said hastily. Every new word seemed risky, and she was still frightened that her lips might suddenly fall apart if she mispronounced a single word wrong.

  Hawkwind. Poe remembered now. Came into being a few months after the moon landings. He'd never heard of them until a decade later when a friend of a friend who was enrolled in the music department at Harvard convinced him to give them a listen when he pressed the cassette into his hands as they talked outside a general elective class near Christmas. He'd been a fan of them ever since.

  Bella slid the cassette in, and pressed play on the worn out key buttons. Poe felt surprised the cassette itself wasn't worn out, considering how often he'd played it through and through when he made the journey to and from Harvard every holiday break like this. Hurry on Sundown would be the first song to be played, and he felt scared, scared, that she might turn around and say not like this hazy Space Rock sound at all.

  But Bella didn't do that. Instead, she found herself nodding along by the time the harmonica had kicked in and the song became a swirling symphony of instruments.

  Bella's mind was, for a moment, freed from the knowledge that she had died and was now undead.

  She was buried in Sundown, but she no longer felt as though she was down.

  She was rising.