Dead Signal

The fourth day of her migraine coincided with the cable outage. Elena lay in their bedroom, curtains drawn tight, listening to Marcus in the living room. He was pacing. She could tell by the rhythm—three steps toward the kitchen, turn, three steps back. Like a caged animal, or like her, trapped in a marriage that had become a zombie of what they'd promised each other twelve years ago.

'I called them,' he said through the door. 'They said four to six.' His voice sounded wrong. Thin.

Elena closed her eyes. The silence where the television's constant drone should have been felt like pressure building behind her eyes. They'd stopped having real conversations somewhere around year eight, replaced themselves with background noise and takeout and separate devices. Now even that was gone.

She found him on the balcony, nursing a scotch he'd bought at the duty-free in Rome—that trip they'd taken when things between them still felt possible, or at least worth pretending for. The hotel pool had been gorgeous, turquoise water lit from beneath, and they'd kissed under the Italian stars, believing something was just beginning when it was already ending.

'Remember Rome?' she asked, not looking at him.

Marcus swirled his glass. 'You hated Rome.'

'I hated that I couldn't make you happy there.'

Thunder cracked, closer than before. The storm had been building all afternoon, the sky turning that bruised purple that made everything feel intimate and dangerous. Lightning flashed, illuminating his face—older now, the lines deeper than she remembered, the softness gone weary.

'I saw something today,' he said quietly. 'Before the cable went out. One of those nature documentaries. They said zombies aren't really dead. They're just—consumed. Something else moves them now.' He looked at her finally. 'I think that's us.'

Elena's heart stopped. Then started again, hard and fast. 'So what do we do?'

'The technician will be here by seven.' Marcus set down his glass. 'We could talk. Or we could just wait for the signal to come back.' Lightning struck somewhere very close, the balcony railing singing with it, and in that stark white flash she saw everything he wasn't saying—that he was as tired of pretending as she was, that this might be their last real moment, that sometimes the thing that dies is what you needed to let go of all along.

She reached for his hand. 'Let the signal wait.'