The New Dead Read Online Free Page A

naturally to me. It was, however, something I had to do. I thought it over. I looked at all sides of it and tried to find another way, but it just wasn’t there.
     
    When Maisie sat at the kitchen table, I told her to place her right arm on the table, on top of a thick bathroom towel. Then I asked her to roll up the sleeve of her uniform. With the puffy, pale flesh of her forearm exposed, I grabbed her wrist in one hand and, with the other, thrust a sharp kitchen knife into her arm, just below the elbow.
     
    I’ve never stabbed a living person, but I’m pretty sure it feels different. Her flesh offered almost no re sistance. It was like stabbing wet dough. I felt the knife nick the bone, but it kept going, all the way through, and I felt the tip of the blade make contact with the towel.
     
    Ryan says that pain works as well as sex, but sex, troubling though it is, bothers me less than torture. Anyone who might begin to think that I was a bad person should keep that in mind. I went for pain only when I had no choice.
     
    Maisie did not scream. She did not stand or pull away or fight. Instead, she looked at me and winced. ‘You asshole motherfucker.’
     
    ‘Maisie, did you put those flowers there? How did you get them? How did you pay for them?’
     
    Her eyes were now wide and moist, almost clear, almost like a living woman’s. The lids fluttered in something like a blink. Her mouth was slightly open, and her usually grey lips were taking on some color.
     
    ‘Fuck you, Walter,’ she said without much inflection.
     
    I twisted the knife in the wound. I could feel the flesh pulling and tearing, twisting along with the knife. ‘Maisie, how did you do it? How did you get the flowers?’
     
    She let out a cry of pain, and then gritted her teeth together in a sick smile. ‘The more you fuck me, the more you torture me, the more I can think, and all I think about is giving you what you deserve. And it doesn’t all go away. Each time I get a little stronger.’
     
    I yanked out the knife.
     
     
    Eight months earlier, I was a different man. I was, at least, not a man who could have imagined he would someday soon be torturing his illegal reanimate just after having sex with her, but life throws you curveballs. That’s for sure.
     
    Things were pretty good, and they were getting better. I was married to a woman more wonderful and clever and creative than I ever thought would look twice at me. I swear I’d fallen in love with Tori the first time I saw her at a birthday party for a mutual friend, and I could never quite believe my good fortune that she’d fallen for me.
     
    Tori was a cellist with the local symphony. How’s that for cool? She was not, perhaps, the most accomplished musician in the world, which was fine by me. I did not want her perpetually on the road, receiving accolades wherever she went, being adored by men far wealthier, better looking, and more intelligent than I. She’d long since given up on dreams of cello stardom and was now happy to be able to make a living doing something she loved. And Tori was pregnant. We’d only just found out, and it was too early to tell anyone, but we were both excited. I was apprehensive too. I think most men are more uneasy about their first child than they like to admit, but I also thought it would be an adventure. It would be an adventure I went through with Tori, and surely that was good enough for me.
     
    Work was another matter. It was okay, but nothing great. I was an account manager at a fairly large advertising agency, one that dealt exclusively with local businesses. There was nothing creative or even challenging about my job, and the pay was no better than decent. Mostly I tried to get new clients and tried to keep the clients we had happy. It was a grind, trying to convince people to keep spending money on sucky radio advertising they probably didn’t need. Most of my coworkers were okay, the atmosphere was congenial enough. My boss was a dick