A tiny voice inside Edna's head pointed out that though she was undeniably a skilled and seasoned bingo player, the fact that all of her opponents were dead might have something to do with her long string of successes. This nasty little voice, which sounded not unlike her nagging (and thankfully deceased) husband Frank, irritated Edna. Winning was winning and fair was fair. Was it her fault zombies weren't cut out for the fast-paced competitiveness of high-stakes bingo?

The next game got underway. The caller, once a handsome young Creek Indian named Joe, began plucking numbered Ping-Pong balls from the big, Plexiglas hopper on the green-carpeted dais. Joe still wore the tattered remains of his cheap tuxedo outfit, though it was badly discolored and seemed to disappear in and out of his flesh in places. Joe's gray face was beginning to look unsightly, Edna noted----like an ice-cream novelty left unattended in the sun----and he was having difficulty calling the numbers in an intelligible fashion. Some sounded as if he was speaking through a veil of rotted seaweed. To make matters worse, he also ate some of the Ping-Pong balls.

Edna had prepared for this, however, positioning herself at a table close to the calling booth. Numbers garbled beyond recognition could usually be eyeballed before the little white spheres disappeared back into the hopper or Joe's mouth.

In an orderly row before her were the tools of the trade: ink daubers and paper playing sheets. Not long after the Reawakening, Edna had helped herself to several new ink daubers behind the now-deserted concession stand. The daubers were larger, gaily colored, and more expensive than those she had once played with. Her old dauber was squat and plain, and she had refilled it with tap water dyed with food coloring because Frank had strictly limited her playing money. The new daubers, used to mark pink, red, and purple circles on the throwaway paper sheets, were scented to smell like strawberries, cherries, and grapes. Edna didn't mind when, hunched over the table, the sickly-sweet smell of the colored ink filled her nostrils; it almost blocked out the odor of her nearby opponents, who sat in dazed rows and shambled blindly along the aisles.

Edna continued marking her sheets in a businesslike fashion, never missing a single number----the secret of winning ( besides playing against zombies, the Frank-voice reminded). Towards four o'clock, her stomach began rumbling. How she wished she could hail a uniformed runner and order a burrito with the works and a large Pepsi! In the old days, during a typical eight-hour session, Edna might consume three burritos with hot sauce and sour cream, a cheeseburger, several bags of chips, a small dish of soft ice cream (chocolate and vanilla swirled together), and a legion of soft drinks.

Now, with the food in the snack bar trampled and spoiled, she was forced to bring her own munchies: vacuum packs of beef jerky, vacuum-sealed cans of cheese curls, and scores of candy bars that wouldn't go over----thanks to BTA and TBHQ, whatever they were----until October 2014. There was a sprawling Food King supermarket three blocks from the bingo hall, and until its shattered roof finished falling in, it served as Edna's super-snack bar. Digging through her canvas tote bag, she extracted a Slim Jim and tore into it with her teeth. The taste was salty and greasy and wonderful, though not as satisfying as a deep-fried jumbo burrito with everything crammed inside.

During the next pattern game, in which the winner was required to form a kite pattern, a zombie caromed off the back of Edna's chair causing her marker to smear across the sheet.

There! That had ruined it! And she had been only three numbers away from completing the tail of the kite and winning five thousand dollars. The big tradeoff with zombies, she fumed, was that though they were a cinch to beat at bingo (or any game, for that matter), they possessed the manners of... wild pigs. They might slump in quiet, swaying rows for hours, uttering hardly a moan, or they might knock about like mummies, overturning tables and making a general racket without so much as an apology if they disrupted a game! It was enough to heat the collar of the most patient, God-fearing soul, especially a dyed-in-the-wool bingo fanatic like Edna.

After winning two more games----the "Round Robin" and "Crazy T"----in quick succession, Edna noticed twilight was stealing its way inside the huge hall. She immediately set down her dauber and reached below her chair.

This time the tote bag produced a large silver flashlight. The light had been scavenged from the blackened hulk of the bingo security guard's station wagon, a Ford Taurus, which now rested upside down in the hall parking lot. The long-necked light held six fat, D-size batteries in its gut, and was heavy enough to use as a club if the need arose. Its beam was strong and steady, like a prison searchlight.

With shadows forming like fathomless pools inside the hall, Edna clicked it on and positioned it so she could read her cards and keep an eye on Joe. With nightfall the interior of the hall would quickly sink into an absolute blackness. Edna would need the light to continue playing and, at midnight, to make her way to an exit. Without its shepherding beam, she knew from experience, one might bump around for an eternity searching for the door.

In the first weeks after the dead had decided to walk again (and feast on live people and play bingo), Edna had found the hall too unsettling to remain in after sundown. Just the zoo-like sounds of zombies shuffling about like blind men had sent icy splinters of terror through her heart. But the light made a considerable difference and didn't attract them.

Nothingseemed to particularly gain their attention, not even Edna, who might be considered, through the dead orbs of a zombie, to be the biggest deluxe burrito around. Like everyone else Edna had kept her distance from them (and, more importantly, their teeth) after they had clawed their way out of the cold ground, but none had ever attacked her. This was, she was now certain, due to years of chemical cancer treatment she had suffered at the hands of young doctors who thought themselves little Gods. The zombies smelled her, yes, but the meat was... no good.

Edna found this situation immensely agreeable. The best part was that zombies wiping out civilization didn't mean she had to quit the only activity that had ever brought her joy. In a way (and He definitely worked in mysterious ones----one look at the hundreds of zombies roaming the interior of the Riverside Avenue Bingo Hall confirmed that!), it was an enormous blessing, a miracle. Edna now enjoyed bingo each and every day, and never paid so much as a penny to play. The coins and bills choking the legion of abandoned cash registers in the city meant nothing. There were none of the worries, setbacks, and anxieties of her previous life. There was no Frank (she definitely had them to thank for that) to complain about bills and starchy meals. The troubles of that dead life had sloughed off as quick and easy as Joe's face. Not even her ponderous weight mattered anymore. None of it mattered. There was only her love of the game.

And now, like never before, Edna was an undeniable winner, the unbeaten empress of all-day, all-night bingo.

Clasping an ink dauber in her plump right hand and hefting the flashlight in her left, she aimed the beam at the silhouetted figure on the dais. Joe, issuing gobbling sounds that might have been numbers, started a new game.

Worm-sacks and Dirt-backs

LEE CLARK ZUMPE

The sanitary world around Dr. Kenneth Sprague had rotted away revealing its rancid underbelly.