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The Reverend whistled. “Then we could string up a lot of lights. ”

“Well, give them enough humans in visual contact, they’ll shake out of it, but seriously, they’ll just stare. The fireworks on New Year’s Eve, that had them completely stone cold still. ”

“Why haven’t you said anything to anyone?” Katie demanded, an edge in her voice.

“I wanted to make sure. ” Charlotte popped a chip in her mouth. “They aren’t smart. They don’t really think. Most likely their brains are the least decayed part of them and I have a feeling it’s all instinct. They do things but don’t know why. Their need to feed is basic. It’s the reptilian brain speaking. Why cannibalism? That I don’t know. I watched one zombie try to mow the lawn at the school the first day of the rising. I don’t think it was doing anything more than something it had done in life. It wasn’t a reasoning action. It was just an action. But it may have been some sort of residual memory that was sparking in his brain. But a few days later, he was just banging on the windows. ”

“So, you think in the first few days after they change, they might have a memory? Of how to do things?” Jenni frowned at this thought, not really wanting to know what it meant.

“Not a conscious thought, Jenni. I don’t think they are actually processing information like we do. It’s their dying brain firing off in weird ways.

Maybe neural pathways looping as the brain transforms into. . . a zombie brain. ” Charlotte shrugged and stuffed more chips in her mouth, crumbs flecking her lips and chin.

“So, if a zombie tried to open a door on the day it was turned, it doesn’t mean it will the next day?” Katie looked at Jenni. “Like that girl who tried to open the truck door. ”

“Oh, right!” Jenni remembered that moment well. The fort had been terrified that the zombies were actually thinking and plotting.

Charlotte nodded her head. “In the first days, I theorize that as their brains are dying or transforming or whatever they are doing to make zombie, residual memory pathways may have zombies doing very mundane human actions. In the end, those neural pathways die and we’re left with a creature that has only the instinct to feed left. ”

“So they’re stupid,” Jenni said with satisfaction.

“Yes. So that works for us. We’re much smarter. ” Charlotte continued to eat her chips, looking thoughtful.

Jenni gulped down more water, washing away the salty taste of the chips from her palette. “Oh, that I’m sure of, but they are damn persistent. ”

The people around them had been silent for most of the conversation as they ate, but the tension in the air was palpable. Jenni felt it, but didn’t really want to know what the others were thinking. She liked things being nice and simple. And Charlotte’s theories made things nice and simple for her.

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nbsp; “Do you think there is anything left that is human inside of them? A spark of who they were? Have you seen that?”

It was Maddie who had spoken up and from the expressions on the faces around her, Jenni understood that it was the question others had been afraid to ask.

“What do you mean?” Charlotte wiped her lap off and took a long drink of her water. She was fairly oblivious of how disconcerting the conversation had become to the others.

Katie set down her sandwich and swallowed hard. Slowly, she raised her eyes. “She means, do you think there is something left of the person they were still inside. Are they aware at all of what they were?”

Hearing the fear and pain in Katie’s voice, Jenni reached out and grabbed her hand. “Of course not! Right, Charlotte? They’re just dead things!”

“I haven’t seen any of them acting remotely like they have a memory of who they were. Like recognizing family members or anything like that?

No. Have any of you? I mean, most of you saw friends and family turn.

All they want to do is eat you. ”

“No. No. I haven’t seen any of my old friends or my family members even so much as look at me as anything other than food,” the Reverend cut in.

“Their souls have moved on. They’re free of this world. ”

“Actually, Reverend, not to correct you or nothing, but they haven’t really moved on. They’re all around us. All the time. Some are stronger in this world than in the other, but they are all caught between the world of the living and the dead. ” Rune looked at everyone steadily. “It got messed up.

All the dead rising like that. The natural order of things got screwed up. ”

“Kinda like that line in Dawn of the Dead when they said there was no more room in hell?” Jenni could feel that Katie’s hand was trembling and she felt terribly for her. She didn’t even want to think of her kids not being in heaven. That was the thought that made her feel better when the nightmares came.

“I don’t know rightly. ” Rune slowly set down his water and rubbed his mustache with his long fingers. “All I know is that I see ’em. I see the ghosts. And everywhere I go, they’re there. Trapped. ”

The Reverend looked like he was about to say something, but as he gazed at Rune’s face, he seemed to think better of it and averted his eyes.