By: Ricardo A. Serrano Denis
I fell in love with her hair first. She was with a group of friends that night, talking to three or four of them at a time. She always gave her full bodily attention to the person who was speaking, moving back and forth between them like a curious animal afraid of losing some small detail that would cost her the conversation. Her hair, my God, it flowed with her every movement, thick blond strings that crashed against her shoulders like a rough wave that couldn’t quite spill over to the other side. I just hoped she had a nice enough face to go along with it. Even I knew that that first shot of desire couldn’t hold up on its own if it didn’t transition into something equally enticing. It did. I inched my way towards her and eventually (some fifteen minutes later) bought a drink for the woman I would see five years of marriage with.
Five years, one morning, and then something beyond our control took over. People started seeing dead family members come back to life. The first reports came in from the South, from dug in communities, their families mostly buried in backyards or small town cemeteries. More a rumor than anything else until it spread over to larger cities, to places important enough for national coverage. We took to our house, going out only if necessary. We barricaded what we could and dug ourselves in. Months went by.
The house is empty now, a nineteenth century rollover reworked just enough to make it cater to its past without overstepping its present. No kids went along with it, no pets. Our neighbors left rather quickly once it all started, making the neighborhood look like a wasteland of mortgaged houses, rows and rows of them, fully furnished with only memories living in them.
We had gotten the place pretty cheap. Couldn’t complain. It wasn’t far off from an old cemetery filled with Civil War history and the men that died for it. But they weren’t amongst the returned. Too old I guess. Not enough left over to dig itself up from six feet under. My wife was the one that decided we stay, that we hold off until it all blew over, that way we save ourselves the backtracking, the rebuilding and the putting back together that usually comes after a catastrophe.
One day she snuck off into the house across the street, the Warren’s—three kids, one dog, pieces of mom and dad still littered around their porch. We’d had a discussion, a shortage of food threatened our stay and she had wanted to check the surrounding houses for supplies. I had said no. We slept, her hair covering most of her face like it always was when she didn’t want me to know she was still wide awake. I never dared to push it back and confirm the suspicion. The sight, it kept me at ease, an invitation to remember the thing that got us here, to five years and a house.
She woke up earlier, way before me, and snuck off. I woke up just in time for it, as if what came next begged for an audience. They got her on her way back, in the middle of the street. She didn’t scream, didn’t want to wake me up I guess.
I still haven’t left the house. I figure I’ll keep to her wishes and wait. I had hoped she’d come back after they’d finished with her. I’d let her come back inside and take me with her. But something kept it from happening. Maybe they ate too much of her. There aren’t much of them around anymore. Our street is mostly deserted, lawns in need of mowing, dust. I look out my…our…window to make sure she’s still there. She is, her hair splayed out on the now cracked asphalt. Every day she’s there, so close to the house. I look on and hope for windy days.
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