I grabbed the squeegee by the handle and carefully extracted it from the zombie’s head. It slid out with a squelch and an outpouring of maggoty gray matter on the curb. The creature was dead, again.

“Look,” Nicole said, “he’s turning back to normal.”

We watched as the corpse’s belly deflated to a reasonable size and its beard slowly fell out, hair by hair. Soon enough he looked just like a gas station attendant ought, quaint and jaunty. And also thoroughly rancid.

I swept away the bristling beard bits and noticed he was wearing a nametag. “Patrick,” I read. This man was an individual with a real family and a real past. Not some nameless Marxist zombie. “We can’t leave him here,” I said, picking up the body. “Honey, can you open the trunk for me?”

“We’re taking him with us?” Nicole was incredulous.

“Patrick needs a proper burial. It’s the right thing to do.”

I set the body in the back of the car and grabbed the tire iron before closing the trunk. There were more zombies about.

“Still hungry?” I asked.