Zombie, Ohio - By Scott Kenemore Page 0,2

the crash. Or maybe I always kept a gun next to the gas and brake pedals.

I stared at it fora long time, like I was trying to figure out what it was. Which was silly, of course, because I knew exactly what it was-a loaded revolver with a walnut handle. Cold blue metal. Heavy and new-looking. I had to admit, even then, in my dazed and unsure state, that the thing looked pretty cool.

For a second I wondered, "Am I the kind of guy who always keeps a loaded gun tucked in his car somewhere? One of those guys? A dude who has to pack heat when he's just going to the grocery store or picking up the dry cleaning?"

It didn't feel like I was. No, I felt more like the kind of guy who would only carry a gun if he had a reason for it. A really good reason. I decided that if I had a good reason to have a gun when I crashed my car into a tree, I probably still had a good reason now. I tucked the gun into my waistband and pulled my shirt down over it.

As I was doing so, I finally heard a sound that was not the snow falling on the winter road or the wind in the trees. It was an approaching engine.

Approaching fast.

By the time I looked up from tucking in the gun, it was already whizzing by. An ancient Ford pickup-the driver, an older man in overalls, wild and mean-looking-rocketed down the rural highway past me. A shotgun was propped next to him, and he gripped it with his free hand as he drove. He was speeding-going very fast considering the snow, I thought. As he passed (without slowing even slightly), he looked first at the wrecked imported car, and then at me-our eyes meeting for just an instant. His stare was cold and intense. Anxious, too-like he was running from something. Or to it.

I turned dumbly and watched the truck as it sped away, the taillights shrinking to ocher balls. I listened as the timeworn engine slowly faded into the distance. Then nothing. Just the snow and the wind in the trees.

That was when I decided I should start walking. Start walking and see what I found like a hospital, or a clinic-hell, at that point I'd have taken a large-animal vet. Just someone in a white coat to tell me what was wrong with me. Tell me what was happening and who and where I was. I reasoned that if I walked, I might encounter familiar sights that would jog my memory.

Sure, I could sit by the car and wait for a passerby who might be inclined to stop, but the shadows were growing long and the temperature had to be dropping. I was still in shock from the wreck-that was why I didn't feel cold, of course-but it had to be 30 degrees out here. I knew I should seek shelter soon. Preferably someplace warm, with people.

Just as I was having that thought, I spied a simple black knit cap stuck to the side of the bifurcated tree, right where the car had hit. Was it mine, I wondered; did it come off my head when I went through the windshield? I walked over and plucked it from the frozen bark. Sure enough, the texture felt familiar. Warm. Comforting.

Pulling the black cap down over my ears (which, I noticed, were a little numb), I made my way back to the shoulder of the road, and faced west-presumably the direction from which I had been driving.

Then I did something that zombies have always done, since the beginning of time-something deep and innate which the undead have always been driven to do.

I started walking ... in search of people.

Kenton College.

A quick search of the Internet will tell you all about it. (They groom a nice Wikipedia page.) It's a small, selective liberal arts school, set atop a hill in rural Ohio. Sizable endowment. Politically liberal, but with token conservatives sprinkled throughout. Trends upper-middle class. (Tuition is obscene. More than most people make in a year.) Its well-manicured campus has beautiful neo-Gothic humanities buildings, ultramodern science and athletic facilities, and dingy but venerable fraternity lodges that lurk in dark places. Kenton also has three or four very famous faculty members. (Or maybe used-to-be-very-famous faculty members.)

When you work there, most days it feels like you're playing for a really good AAA baseball team. Not the big leagues, sure,