True Love

You know when even the things you dislike about a person make you love her even more? Well, that was Mary.

On the one hand, she had terrible hygiene. Her breath stank like a sewer drain, and she suffered from constant skin infections. On the other hand, those issues meant that I was her best friend in the whole world. No one else looked at her lank hair, oily to the touch, or her cracked and scabby lips without wrinkling their noses in judgment.

And no one but Mary looked at me like the fate of the universe depended on my every breath.

For the umpteenth time, I set out into civilization with a grisly task in mind. But knowing how grateful Mary would be for fresh human brains raised my spirits. Before I met her, no one had ever lavished me with praise just for making a trip to the grocery store.

At the end of a long day of hunting and hacking off heads, I cleaned the blade of my chainsaw in the waters of a lonely creek. Having a zombie for a wife wasn’t glamorous, but I wouldn’t trade her for all of the apple pies and white picket fences the world had to offer.