Avi quickly tried to dissuade my obsession with Sarah, but he knew his attempts were futile. He taught me many things about this new world; how to make brief trips to human stores or gas stations, how to get food, currency. But the one thing he could not teach me was how to give up on my past. Sarah was my past, and I knew she was also my future. But Avi's frustrations were beginning to show through.

One night about a week after I had joined him, he fully cracked. "What if she is healthy, Seth?"

It was the question that had been plaguing me. What if she made it? I wanted her to be healthy. I wanted her to be looking at this new world with crystal blue eyes. I wanted her delicate porcelain skin to cover her fragile bones. But if she were healthy, forever was over for us. I no longer deserved such gentle beauty in my current state.

As much as I fought it, a small flame hoped she had turned. I hope that she was among the mindless masses that roamed the street in a one-track stupor. It was a terrible thought, but it burned within me. If she had the black eyes of this disease, we had a chance. I could bring her back to me.

"What if she is not?" I shot back bitterly. But my anger was not at Avi, it wasn't at this new world, and it wasn't at the disease. My fury was at my own selfishness. "I need the salt. I have to go look for her."

Avi sat back and surveyed me for a moment. He took a swift intake of breath before he began, as though the story would cause him physical pain. "Things do not always turn out as you hope. Michi found his daughter and was able to turn her back to whatever it is we are; not quite human, but not a zombie. Her name was Aiko. Michi told me all these stories of her before the change. Tales of a sweet but driven girl, intelligent and funny. When he turned her back, she was Aiko, but the experience affected her. Her new strength and loneliness led her down a new path Michi didn't expect."

Avi shifted uncomfortably at the memories. He wasn't meeting my eyes as he spoke.

"That's when Michi began to turn a few more of us, so she didn't feel so alone. I was part of that group. There were a few of us, but we were a divided club. Maybe Michi was too sentimental, hoping his cure could help bridge the gap between humans and zombies. Having more like her, Aiko was pushed further down a dark path, one where the physical benefits of being a zombie coupled with a human's mind made her feel superior. Many of the group agreed with her," Avi's head shook back and forth as he recounted the tale.

"But she wouldn't have killed her own father?"

"No, of course not. Their bond was much stronger than even most fathers and daughters get to share. But Aiko grew cocky with the support of others like her. That's what led to her downfall. She thought she was invincible, but we always have to remember that we are not. One bullet to our brain, and we are dead..." he mumbled something under his breath that I did not hear.

"What happened to her?"

"She was in the street during a thinning. Michi called to her to take cover, but she didn't. She thought she was smarter than a bullet. It's a lucky man that has never seen a shot shatter a delicate skull. Unfortunately, the numbers that haven't seen it are fewer than those that have now," a shuddered at the memory rippled through Avi. "I tried to stop him, but grief hits faster than action. Michi was there by her side. They should have known he was different. Zombies don't mourn. Either they weren't thinking or didn't care. Maybe it was for the better. They get to rest together now and don't have to see the degradation of each new day."

"What happened to the others?"

"They left soon after, went north."

"You didn't go with them? Wouldn't you want to stay together?"

"They were going down a path I can't follow. I know I'm not better than the living. I'm something in between. We're something in between."

A quiet fell between us. My mind played through the ghost story I had just heard, the horror that had led Avi to his isolation.

"Are you mad?" Avi broke through my thoughts.

"Mad? At what?"

"Me, for making you this?" Avi's gaze landed on me mournfully.

"No, you gave me my life back."

"I gave you your mind back. Your life ended in May. You can't go back to that."

I tried to deflect his words, not to let them sink in, but they burned into me like acid. "I need to go home, to my apartment."

"There's nothing left for you there," Avi shook his head as his gaze dropped from me.

"You don't know that."

Avi let out a sigh, "you know why I chose you?"

"Of course not," I was annoyed at his question.

"When I saw you in the mass of brain fiends, you paused for a moment and let a finger run over the bloom of a flower. I almost thought you were like me, but you wouldn't talk. I knew you were different."

"I am different. I have a Sarah, and I won't give up on her."

Avi's story of the flower propelled me further. Even in the fog of zombie brain, Sarah was in there. Her smile was tipping to her blue eyes while a soft breeze blew loose strands of her blond hair around her face. Somewhere, she would take time to adjust the velvet flowers of a bouquet in a vase even if she were turned herself. She was still Sarah, my Sarah. And I was still Seth, her Seth.

It doesn't often rain in Los Angeles, but it was raining the next day when Avi reluctantly agreed to go to my apartment with me. If nothing else, I could get more clothes. I knew the standard rules of society were gone, and pillaging empty apartments for clothes was common. But my mind always wondered where the actual owner was and if I was wearing the shoes of a dead man.

The rain offered additional protection for us; our telltale skin was obscured, hidden beneath the hoods of raincoats. My memories were a gathering of disjointed pools like the puddles around us. I felt like the smattering of raindrops that collected in murky potholes. A few times, I even caught my face staring back up at me, but I always turned away quickly. I didn't recognize my own face anymore.

I expected the apartment to be the same, frozen in time like I had been, but it wasn't. There was a permeating stench of spoiled food, and a thin layer of dust covered everything. There was no life anymore. Even Sarah's windowsill garden had withered and died from neglect. Out of a desire for something like normalcy, I pulled my dripping coat off and hung it on the peg so Sarah wouldn't yell at me for getting water on the floor. I even took my shoes off before a few tears began to pool in the back of my eyes. Sarah wasn't there to reprimand me.

I turned it off; I turned the past off. It was all I could do to contain myself. I would mourn later; I would scream and punch a wall until it crumbled later.

I pulled out my duffel bag and began to take whatever attracted me. A few t-shirts, a couple of pairs of jeans, socks, boxers, and black Adidas sneakers Sarah got me for Christmas. It was when the obvious passed that the sentimental slipped in; I found myself wrapping Sarah's perfume in one of her yellow scarves, taking a picture of us at the zoo from her nightstand, and plucking up her Ray-Ban Wayfarers. She had loved them, the sunglasses of Bob Dylan.

"Were you the cook or Sarah?" Avi asked as I returned to the large room that made up both the living room and kitchen.

"Sarah, why?"

"She's got good taste in salt," as he spoke, he held up a canvas pouch.

"Is that?"

"Sure is, kiddo. It looks like you don't need to be fighting me for my stash anymore. You got yourself one of your own," he tossed me the satchel as he spoke. "You mind if I clear out your hot sauce collection?"

"Have at it," I mumbled as my eyes clung to my future. It was a sign from Sarah. This was the salt that would bring us back together.

"I suppose this means you'll be heading out soon," Avi asked as we began our trek back to his place.

"You'll come with me, right?"

"Nah, my home is here. It's the only thing I have left." It was a mournful sentiment that came out with just a shrug.

"You have me. Maybe a road trip will help," I offered.

"Road-trip? Where exactly do you think you're headed?"

"Ojai," I said confidently. "That's where Sarah would go."

"And if she didn't have her wits about her?"

"She always has her wits about her. If I stopped to touch a flower, she would be able to blow off the haze like blowing out a candle."

"That's not how it works, buddy," Avi cautioned.

"Sarah is in Ojai. I know it."