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            “In the mourning I can see the sights
            No wonder I could never keep you satisfied
            In the mourning I can see inside
            Myself and all the things that you were trying to hide”

                        Tantric, Mourning

            My head aches. Not like a mild headache. Not some little ‘stepped out of the movie theater too fast’ headache. No. Like an ice cream headache, but all over. Like a sledgehammer driving a wooden stake through my ear, but in fast forward-repeat.

            I open my eyes and Patrick’s leaning over me. I can tell he’s talking, but I can’t really seem to comprehend the words. He touches my forehead and doesn’t look good. I wonder what he’s saying? I start to try and sit up. As I get vertical, I start to feel better. The pain isn’t bas bad.

            But Patrick puts his big hand down on my chest and pushes me back down onto the dirt. Not only does the pain swell back as I lower, but my head bangs on a hard patch of dirt. Maybe it’s a rock. I grimace, then start to sit back up. And again, Patrick pushes me down. He looks at me, as if trying to figure out why I’m sitting up. I give him the finger and sit up.

            And my ears pop.

            And it’s the most glorious thing I’ve ever felt in my life. It’s like every good meal I’ve ever had rolled up into one. Every orgasm, every piece of blueberry cobbler my grandmother makes, all of it. Boom. I am suddenly the happiest man on earth.

            The pain is gone in an instant. I move my jaw, to make sure, enjoying the absence of pain and the sudden sense of equilibrium that’s returned. I looked at Slate and she’s staring at me. “What the hell was that?” She asks.

            “Ears popped.” I sigh.

            “Well, now that we’ve had our special moment for the day,” Patrick says, sitting down across from Slate, the three of us forming a triangle around the base of the tree that I guess we climbed down. “We need to decide what to do from here.”

            “This area,” He says, moving his hand across the desert landscape. “Is just about dead center between El Malpais national monument and the Gila cliff dwellings. So, to put it mildly, we are in the middle of absolutely nowhere.”

            “Great.” I grumble.

             “Wait.” Slate jibes to me. “It gets better.”

            “Yeah it does.” Patrick nods in the darkness. “The closest town is Socorro, but first we’d have to make it to highway 60, which is at least a good 50 something miles through a desert.”

            “We can make the walk.” Slate says certainly.

            “Maybe.” I say. “But what I want to know is, where the hell are the people?” Both Slate and Patrick stare at me. “Guys, look at that.” I say, holding my hand back to the large base of a tube sticking up out of the desert. “Or how about the two bio-domes lying on their sides behind it. Where the hell are the emergency response crews and stuff, you know? Where are the reporters and stuff? Hell, we’re the Ever-after guys to figure out what happened? Hell, while we’re at it, where’s the construction crew that’s supposed to be cleaning it up?”

            “He makes a good point.” Slate says, looking at Patrick. Are these two really so dense?

            “Guys.” I say, my sincerity infecting them. “What if there’s a reason there’s no one here to clean this stuff up? What if there’s a reason that there hasn’t been a response?”

            “And that would be?” Slate asks, ready to disregard what I have to say.

            I stare at her, the sincerity in my words already hitting her with the truth before I even speak.

            “What if the zombies got out?”

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