The sound of the ocean lulls me into a blissful relaxation. The sun sets on the beach. I’m not sure if the sun will ever dip behind the horizon, and I don’t much care. Its golden light gives everything that beautiful, saturated glow. The water seems blue, even though it isn’t. The sky seems blue, even though it isn’t. The trees sway with the gentle breeze. How can anything be so green? Zoic walks toward me, digging her toes into the sand. She is holding two frosty white glasses of what I can only imagine is liquid heaven. She is naked except for her bikini bottom. Her breasts seem to smile at me as much as her face. The sun, too. It’s smiling. A thud. A woody thud. There is no wood that I can see for miles down the beach. I am sitting in the sand myself. Another thud, louder. This doesn’t make sense. Louder this time.

I woke up. Angry. I switched off the white noise generator that provides me with ocean sounds all night and groggily walked toward the door. Zoic was already there, looking out the distorted glass window. It was Dave. Dave is infected, and mostly dead from what we can tell, but he still seems to return from work at the same time every night. He can’t operate the door knob, which is good news for us, but the knowledge that he can find his way home is frightening. Just how many of the countless infected that we’ve killed still had some memory of who they were before? How many of them still have valuable, although small, parts of their conscious minds left?

“We should really do something,” I said. Zoic merely nodded. There was a pause as we watched Dave sliding his hand down the window and bump his head into the glass once more. “I don’t think I can do it,” I said finally. We had already emptied the home of Grace, Dave’s wife, and their two children, still pictures above the fireplace. I just couldn’t bring myself to kill him as well. Zoic nodded again. “Maybe we’ll get used to it,” I added. “Back to bed.” Zoic sighed and turned to head back to her room.
Without facing me, she said the words, “You’ve got an erection.”