Vlad sat back and exhaled both in relief and perhaps wistfulness. “You know that answer, Merlin. No. They’re not. It’s not your typical ‘scare your neighbors with their undead family’ sort of spell.”

Merlin nodded. “But you think it’s a spell?”

Vlad winced and shrugged. “I don’t want to be…you know… Creaturist…but most zombies…they don’t have jobs. They just wander around eating brains and being creepy until they fall apart. These are different. They’re making money, going through the motions of a regular Gray life. And what’s weird? They aren’t falling apart.”

Merlin furrowed his brows. “They’re falling apart a little. Some of them.”

“Yeah, I guess, but not in the way you’d expect with a regular undead enchantment. These don’t seem as if they’ve died. More as if they’re suspended in an in-between state.”

“Right.” Merlin eyed Justice. “I noticed that too. There’s intelligence there. Got into the head of the lady next door. She’s having thoughts. Primitive, sort of capped at a certain level of functionality, but she’s there. It doesn’t seem to be a full undead experience.” Merlin’s face went red as he held up his hands. “No offense.”

“Hey. Vampires are totally different. We don’t rot like that.” Vlad frowned and stared down at his long nails. “These zombies seem sentient, which is what I think you’re getting at. And I’ve never seen the one upstairs get fed.”

Justice still hadn’t dealt with his feelings about the zombies and that maybe he’d been killing people. That happened in wars, he supposed. People got killed. Still, there was Lewis.

Maybe he could be restored. Then they could… Well, who knew. But at least he would be alive.

“So you don’t think it’s a virus? There’s movies and stuff and there’s science that supports viruses or whatever that can use a host body.”

Merlin shook his head. “No. There’s something guiding people back to their jobs. A virus wouldn’t know what someone’s job was or give them an inkling as to where they lived.”

Merlin took a candle from one of the holders and started toying with it, leaching light onto his fingertips, and then he spread the flame in a ball that he rolled on the palm of his hand. He eyed Vlad. “Do you know exactly when this happened? Who would be a powerful enough conjurer to do this? And why?”

It hit Justice that Merlin must not have been around or aware when the event happened. Where could he have been? Maybe he was in a hospital? High? He didn’t look like a junkie, but maybe he cleaned up?

Justice shook his head. He couldn’t remember exactly when this tragedy had happened. He could recall events; he knew that he had been on the highway.

There were partners that he’d lost. There were events, but the timeline was fuzzy. Had it been days? Weeks? Months? Years? Justice wasn’t sure.

Suddenly he realized how strange it was they didn’t have any city or nationwide memorials or vigils for the people who were now zombies. It was as if they’d all accepted the zombies into the world and formed up ZoCOS against them when or if they got out of control. Otherwise, no one talked about it much.

Merlin was asking questions that no one ever asked and apparently that even Vlad couldn’t answer. If Justice believed in spells, this situation sounded like it could be one. But probably it was mass hypnosis or something. That seemed plausible.

Justice and Vlad looked blankly at Merlin, who sighed. This would be his question to answer. Merlin squashed the ball of fire in his hand. If he knew, he wasn’t going to share the answers.

Apparently realizing that Merlin wasn’t going to say anything, Vlad turned to Justice. “Seriously, his name is Merlin, and you didn’t even suspect he’s a wizard? Most famous wizard name in the world and you didn’t have an inkling? Wow. Wonder what you think people named Jesus are. Probably have no idea.”

Justice looked down at his hands as he took in what he heard. A wizard. His partner was a wizard, which was good; at least he was on his side, but what was difficult for Justice to wrap his head around was that he’d been living in a world with wizards and vampires. And zombies.

Zombies that may be still alive, just wandering around with a spell on them.

Wait, what was that about people named Jesus? He dated a guy named Jesus once. He didn’t seem religious, but… “Are you saying that…?”

Merlin held up his hand and shook his head at Vlad. “He’s fucking with you.”

Right. Fine. But at this point, Justice was starting to believe almost anything. “So if these zombies are still really alive, and it’s a spell and not mass-hypnosis LSD trips or whatever, what are we going to do about it?”

~~This series will continue in daily increments through the end of March 2026. After that, it will be once a week on Tuesdays~~