The Walking Undead of Us

At 3 AM, Maya found herself scrolling through her iphone, the blue light illuminating the gray hair she'd stopped plucking three months ago. Somewhere beside her, David slept with the rhythmic certainty of a man who'd never questioned the life they'd built together.

They'd become zombies, really—not the flesh-eating kind, but something worse: two people who'd died while still living, going through the motions of a marriage that had expired years ago. The sex had been perfunctory for months. The conversations circled the same drain of groceries, bills, his mother.

Her thumb froze on a notification from Marcus, her former colleague from the gallery. He'd messaged at midnight: *Thinking about that Matisse exhibit. Remember?*

Maya remembered. She remembered everything about those months before she'd married David—the way Marcus had looked at her across crowded openings, the electricity of his hand on her back, the conversations that lasted until dawn. She remembered the fire she'd deliberately extinguished to build something safe with David instead.

She slid out from under the duvet, padded to the bathroom mirror. The woman staring back had tired eyes and a strand of silver hair that caught the light like wire. She looked like someone who'd made the wrong choice and was too cowardly to admit it.

Her iphone buzzed again. *I'm at the Oak Room. Come if you want.*

The invitation sat in her palm like a loaded gun. She could slip on her coat, disappear into the night, choose the version of herself she'd murdered thirteen years ago. The zombie could finally live—or die trying.

Maya looked once more at the woman in the mirror, then back at the bedroom where her safe, dead marriage slumbered on. Her fingers moved over the screen, deleting the message without opening it.

Some walking dead, she decided, preferred their graves.