There were signs on her body where the car had struck, deep lesions that had been sewn shut. I tried not to look at them as I removed her bra, her once full breasts now flaps of skin that made me feel a little repulsed to look at.
Tim hurried into the bathroom as I was removing her underwear and I felt a little embarrassed both for Jo and me, but Tim seemed unfazed and was taking it all perfectly in his stride. He got his practicality from his mother.
“I’ve got her another dress,” he said. “It’ll be easier to get on and off. I didn’t bother with underwear. Do you think she’ll need any?”
I shook my head. “I guess not.”
Tim had selected a pale blue knee-length dress with large white flowers that he put on the edge of the bath. “She needs a shower,” he said.
I ushered her into the shower stall and switched on the spray. Hot steaming water shot out and I tested the temperature before remembering she was dead so probably wouldn’t know how hot it was anyway. Once she was underneath the spray she kept walking forwards into the wall, water bouncing off her head. Tim leaned in and grabbed a bottle of shampoo.
“Soon have you looking like your old self,” he said as he washed her hair.
I lowered the toilet seat and sat down to watch as Tim lovingly washed his mother like it was the most natural thing in the world. Bits of skin and hair came away in his hands but he didn’t seem concerned.
Once he had finished we guided her out of the shower, toweled her dry and then I sprayed her with some of my antiperspirant to mask the smell that still emanated from her. I raised her arms to allow Tim to pull the dress over them and over her head. Tim then combed her tresses, ignoring the fact he was pulling more out than he was straightening.
While he did this I stared into her eyes. They had once been bright blue. Now they looked dead and lifeless. Could she still see? If she did, could she recognize anything?
I felt myself choking up so I swallowed and rubbed my eyes. Steam drifted around the room and I felt hot but didn’t know if it was due to the temperature or the circumstances.
“Now what are we going to do?” I asked as I wiped perspiration from my brow.
Tim looked at me. “Well me and Mum are going to go watch telly,” he said before leading Joanna away. As he reached the door, Tim turned and looked at me. “I love you, Dad.” Then he left the room. A tear rolled down my cheek and I wiped it away. Seconds later I heard the television downstairs and the sound of Tim laughing at something.
I knew I had to find out how she had returned from the grave, so I walked through to the spare bedroom where the computer was and switched it on. If more people had come back to life, surely there would be news of it. After ten minutes of searching I came up with nothing. Perhaps if it had happened to other people, whoever found them wouldn’t say anything. Perhaps they were just glad to have their loved ones back. Or perhaps they were afraid someone would come and take their nearest and dearest away to experiment on them to find out how it had occurred and what was making them tick.
Unable to find out whether it had happened elsewhere, my next course of action was to see if I could discern why or how it happened.
After an hour’s searching I discovered that zombification, for want of a better word, can supposedly result from parasitic bites like one from a single cell organism called toxoplasmosa gondii that infects rats but can only breed inside a cat’s intestines. So it takes over the rat’s brain and basically programs itself to get eaten by a cat. Then there were neurotoxins, or certain kinds of poisons that slow your bodily functions to the point that you’ll be considered dead even though you’re not. Or perhaps a virus of some kind. Finally there was neurogenesis, or the method by which scientists can re-grow dead brain tissue.
None of them helped me discover how Joanna had come back, just that it wasn’t outside the realms of possibility that she could have done so. And the woman downstairs was proof enough, if any were ever needed, that it certainly was possible.
I switched the computer off and then went downstairs to join my family.
The knock at the door made me jump. I stared across at Tim as he sat reading to his mum. She paid no attention as she staggered around the room. Despite having had her in the house for a couple of days, I still hadn’t gotten used to having my wife back.
The knock came again, more insistent, joined by the ringing of the doorbell. I jumped up and walked to see who was there. “Keep quiet,” I said as I shut the living room door behind me.
I opened the front door and my jaw dropped when I saw the acne-scarred police officer standing there.
“Mr. White?”
I nodded dumbly, my pulse racing.
“I’m afraid I have some disturbing news for you. There’s no easy way to say this, but your wife’s grave has been desecrated and her body removed.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Desecrated?”
“Don’t worry, sir, we’re going to do our best to find her body.”
I glanced along the hallway before turning back. “Who would do something like that?”
The police officer shrugged and stared at his feet. “I don’t know sir. I really don’t.”
The next few days were spent in a kind of haze as I learned to accept that Joanna was back in our lives. We didn’t tell anybody. She was our secret. When I went to work and Tim went to school, we locked her in the cupboard under the stairs.
Tim seemed to believe that everything was back to normal, and that we should just carry on as though nothing had happened. He even expected me to accept her back into my bed, but certainly for now, that wasn’t going to happen and I wrapped her in a sleeping bag at night, pulling the toggle on it tight enough to cocoon her inside. Not that she slept and I could hear her bumping around, shuffling like a giant caterpillar. Even though she was my wife, I still didn’t know exactly how I felt about having a dead woman in the house, never mind in my bed. Necrophilia wasn’t something I wanted any part of. Not that Joanna would be in the least bit able to reciprocate. She ambled around the house like a robot, bumping into walls and falling over things as though she couldn’t see too well. Perhaps that’s why she walked along with her arms raised most of the time, sort of like feelers.
She certainly didn’t cost much to look after. She didn’t eat and she didn’t go to the toilet and once you got used to her being around you could almost believe she wasn’t dead. I even started talking to her and although she didn’t reply, I found her presence comforting.
I will admit that for the first few days I was nervous, as zombies had a reputation for biting people and making them one of the undead, but Joanna didn’t seem to have any interest in biting, so I eventually accepted that she wasn’t going to eat us.
Tim doted on her. He took over all the chores involved with looking after his mum. Bathing, dressing, and generally taking care of her as though she was an invalid. I gradually accepted the situation.
My main fear—aside from being eaten—had been that Joanna would slowly rot away and we’d lose her all over again, but after a few days she stopped decomposing and reached a point of stasis.
Now I was no artist, but with the use of liberal amounts of makeup my wife could be made to look almost normal (this was the only thing Tim didn’t do for her as he accepted Joanna for what she looked like, but he was happy for me to apply foundation, blusher, and rouge as I saw fit). When all of her hair dropped out I bought her a wig and glued it in place. And even though she stopped smelling of decay, I sprayed Jo with her favorite perfume so I could smell her as she shuffled around the room, the scent conjuring a host of memories.