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Group. All rights reserved.
“Then what are you talking
about?”
J nods. “Forget it,” she says
again. “Forget it.”
Some of the mothers pull
their phones from their purses
to have a look at the news of
the world. The kitchen’s quiet.
The dead wood of the cabi-
nets and tables just sits there.
Finally, one woman puts down
her phone and speaks up. “I’m
going to root for being alive
over being dead. Sorry, J. I like
it here. I want to stay here, as
a human. Soccer, dinner, cup-
cakes, all of it.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah. Go, team.”
“You guys, I’m not rooting
for death,” J says. “I want to
stay alive so much, I can’t sleep
at night trying to hold on to
it. I’m just telling you that in
the forest, the dead stuff in the
ground wasn’t dead. It was liv-
ing. It was both. Dead and alive
at the same time. It was making
the trees grow and it was—”
“Wait. Wait.” L, hostess
without end, tries to make
nice again. Smooth, sane,
polite, safe gossip. “But what
happened to the woman? Does
anyone know? Should we go
look? Maybe she’s there, hurt.
Maybe we just—”
“Oh wait. I know what
happened to her,” P says, a
new thought dawning across
her face.
“You do?”
“Were you there?”
“No. But I know what hap-
pened.”
“You weren’t even there, P.”
“You saw a ghost, J.”
“Huh.”
“Or a zombie. Like on the
show last night. For real.”
“Don’t tell me. I haven’t
watched it yet.”
“I’m serious. It’s the only
explanation that makes sense.
You saw a woman go into the
woods and never come out.
Why did she have no car? Why
did she have no kids?”
“Why?”
“Because she’s dead.”
“Or maybe she just likes
the woods. Maybe she didn’t
want to have kids.”
“Stop.”
“And you were walking
right into her trap, J. How do
we know you’re not dead too?”
“I am dead too. That’s what
I’m trying to tell you, dead and
alive.”
“So she got you? She bit
you? That’s why you’re acting
so weird.”
“No. I never even saw her in
the woods. Are you listening?”
“Oh God.”
“Stop.”
“I’m serious. Maybe J just
hasn’t started to decay yet.
When did you say this hap-
pened?”
“Stop. You’re scaring me.”
“I’ve definitely started to
decay. You have too, P.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Well maybe we should be
scared.” P grabs J’s wrist, trying
to feel for a pulse.
“Really?” J asks.
“It’s just like the show. No
one knew she was a zombie
until she ate all their brains.”
“Fuck! You just ruined the
one highlight of my week. She
ate them all?”
“Or maybe the woman did
come out of the woods again.Came out of the woods dead.
She could be anywhere. She
could be walking among all of
the kids right now, coming to
Career—”
The doorbell rings.
“Shit!” The mothers jump.
“It’s just the door,” L says.
“Don’t answer it.”
“Are you serious?”
“Didn’t you watch?”
“Don’t answer the door, L.”
Then a firm knock. The
mothers listen from the
kitchen. L tries to crane her
neck to see through the win-
dow. “It might be the new girl’s
mom. I have to let her in.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yeah you do.”
“What if she’s dead?”
“Open the door, L. This is
absurd.”
“Yeah.”
“Stop.”
“Please don’t.” One mother
unwraps a cupcake, takes a
large bite. “Don’t.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Please.”
“Open the door.”
“You have to.”
“Yeah, you do,” J says.
“Even if she is dead.”
“Jesus, J! Stop it. I’m not
going to sleep for weeks. Please.”
L approaches the door. A
handful of the mothers shrink
in their seats.
“Open the door,” J says.
“Open all the doors.”
“Shit. Hold up. Hold up,”
A says. “The kids are coming.”
“The kids are coming?
Fuck. Don’t open the door.”
“Are you okay, J? Every-
body good?”
“I’m fine. Yeah.”
“You sure?”“I’m fine.”
“Don’t open that door.”
“Here come the kids. Ah,
Christ. Goody bags. Sorry, L.”
L slows her approach
toward the door. Her hand
nears the knob. “I swear I only
put in healthy snacks and some
erasers. Oh, and a Ring Pop.
And Tootsie Rolls. And a water
pistol. Everybody all right?”
“Don’t open the door.”
L pauses in the foyer.
“Hello?” She lifts her hand
to the door as if to touch
the thing on the other side,
to know it without having
to open to it. Only it doesn’t
work that way. The wood of
the door reveals nothing. And
L, inside the house, knows
nothing of outsides. L touches
the knob.
“I’m fine,” J says in the
kitchen. “I probably have the
story wrong, anyway. The sun
set so no one saw the woman
come back, find her things—
you know, her keys, her
phone, her kids. No one saw
her drive home in the dark.
That’s how you want the story
to end, right?”
The mothers watch L at the
door.
“Right,” one of them says.
“Sure. Shhh. Here come the
kids.”
“Right. Shut the fuck up.
Here come the kids.”Samantha Hunt is the author
of three novels and a collection
of stories. She has won the
National Book Foundation’s
5 Under 35 award, the Bard
Fiction Prize, and the St.
Francis College Literary Prize.