Rudy Bega, Census Agent # 334, pushed the door open with his shoulder.  He didn’t bother avoiding the chunky cranberry-and-sauerkraut splatter streaking its surface.  Within the room, a hollowed-out dog lay at the foot of the bed.  The bed was unmade, and the body of the woman who lay atop it was mostly gone.  Her brainpan was partially missing, and the remainder had the usual gnaw marks.

Rudy lowered the .38 that had blown the husband’s own brainpan across the recently opened door and took a breath.  He was thankful that there had been no heat in the house for the last couple of years.  There was no stench to deal with.  Even the anti-contamination mask couldn’t keep it out when there was.

Kicking the woman’s legs over, Rudy sat on the edge of the bed and pulled out his PDA. Scrolling through the country names, he clicked on “Armenia,” then on the village, “Garinis.”  Of the thousand or so names that came up, the vast majority already had digital “x”‘s next to them.  Scrolling further down, he found the two that he was looking for: “Eghian, Bedros” and “Eghian, Dzhagig.”  He wasn’t sure which one had been which, so he simply put red exes by both.  The Zombies were supposed to get red ones, the unturned dead were supposed to get black ones.  Like it really mattered, he thought.  He almost patted the dog’s body before catching himself.

This–Bedros or Dzhagig–was the fourth one he’d taken out that day.  To keep on pace, he’d have to find at least two more before the sun went down.  During the light, they liked to stay in familiar places, often their homes.  But come post-dark, it got too cold and dangerous to keep up the census count.

He’d stopped bothering with the major cities.  Sure, he could find one or two lurchers in the streets, scavenging for some hapless stray cat or some such, but nukes and bombing raids had taken care of most of them.  The only real clusters left were in the small towns and villages.

It was the fourth day of his five-day operation, and he’d eliminated nineteen lurchers so far.  The good news was that they were getting harder to find.  He thought of this as he looked around the room: a dresser with a mirror and a framed wedding photo, a broken window with shards of glass.

Six years ago, it had been twenty or thirty a day.  His personal best was sixty-five.  The International Census Bureau  had given him an extra day between operations for that.  Of course, he’d gone out at night then, too, when they were more active and easier to find.   He’d been motivated.  Actually tried to win the division contests, like the trip to  Everest, where you didn’t even have to wear a mask.

This last year, though, he’d lost his sense of purpose.  They didn’t even note the eliminations as “kills,” anymore.  “Because, well…  they’re already dead, mate,” his manager had explained.

He’d taken the job as a summer gig.  Go door to door, ask how many people lived at the address, what the names were, smile and move on.  When the Infection took over that July, it all changed.  Within months, the living were the minority.  It became imperative to find and save whatever living souls remained.  Census agents were given guns to protect themselves.

By July of the next year, that mission had become a wasted effort.  The guns had become a tool of the job: necessary for completing its tasks.  The only way to eliminate the Infection, it was decided, was to destroy the hosts.  The role of the Census Bureau and its agents now was to produce a population count that worked backwards, to zero.   Rudy often wondered whether that would mean destroying the living, too, if it came to that.

Distracted with these thoughts as he left the house–hoping maybe the garden he’d seen was still productive, and that maybe he could dig up a potato–he slipped on the mottled red and grey gravy leaking from Eghian #1’s shattered head.

Recovering, he decided he’d put in for a vacation when he got back.  Maybe Siberia.  You still had to wear a mask, but it was cold enough that the lurchers couldn’t survive there long: just sort of froze up and got stuck, statue-like for eternity.

The surrounding streets with their scattered houses produced nothing but non-lurching victims over the next few hours;  gnawed family members and a few duly skittish once-pets.  One of the houses actually had a wood burning stove that looked to still be in working order, and he decided to rest there for the cold winter night.

Not that he would dare to use it.  The Zombies detected heat, and he was too tired to stay up plugging them as they came–that was one way to up your numbers, like in a final push for Census Agent of the Month.  But no, tonight it just felt homey to curl up in front of the stove as the obliterated world went on dying outside, under the full moon.  Most of the windows were still intact, even.

In the dream, he was on stage, and he was dressed as a turkey.  Another kid on the stage was dressed as a Pilgrim, complete with the belt-buckled black hat.  Rudy was about nine years old.  He was trying to find his mom in the audience, but the lights and the fat kid dressed like the Mayflower who blocked his view made it difficult.  An older kid, dressed like Lincoln, kept repeating “Four score and seven years ago, our fore-fathers brought forth…. Four score and seven years ago, out fore-fathers brought forth….” And then they were all bowing.

The parents were all clapping and cheering, but it didn’t sound right.  The ship was bowing and standing, bowing and standing again, and Rudy was on the balls of his feet trying to see over it all.  Then the house lights went on.

There was no cheering.  The sound was from the ones groaning, the way the lurchers do when they get excited.  There was no clapping.  It was the sound of dead and bloodless fists slamming against a thick glass wall that separated the stage from the necrotic masses.  His mom was in  their midst, white, pupil-less eyes not-staring back at him.

Rudy woke with a jerk.  He had the trigger half-pulled, the gun in a two-handed grip and aimed at the door before he even realized what he was doing.  He looked around quickly, trying to listen to sounds beyond the thudding of his heart and the rush of blood through his ears.

The inarticulate groaning was real, as was the sound of dead flesh hitting glass.  One of them had found him.  A kid, probably about ten years old.  The moonlight made the kid’s mottled face visible.  Its small fists thumped again and again before the glass shattered and its head-stuffing scattered over the snow outside.

With his ears still ringing from the sound of the shot, Rudy stood and put his back against the wall.  When one found him, it was always a sure bet that others would.  Maybe he could keep this operation’s numbers decent, and make up for the slow afternoon, he thought.

Sliding along the wall, he made it to the front door and eased it open.  The moon provided enough light to see out onto the dead, white night.  Rudy almost dropped the gun.

There was a snow-man in the yard of the house across the narrow dirt road.  A god-honest snowman, complete with branches sticking out as arms, and what might have been a corn cob for a nose.   Black somethings made a mouth.  All that was missing was a hat and the eyes.

The village lurcher-kids were sort of lumbering around it, some clumsily pushing bits of snow onto it while others jerkily clapped.  One was yanked off when it tried to bite into the pumpkin-sized snowball head.  Just like human kids, Rudy thought.

Rudy dropped the gun, and staggered.  One of them had jumped on him from the roof, slamming something hard into his head again and again.

He tried to spin the little zombie off, and was caught with a thick branch to the side of his head.  Falling to his knees, Rudy tried to kick out, and fell onto his side.  As sort of an after-thought, it occurred to him that the branch was a tool.  They had used a tool.  They had ambushed him.  Like humans.

With his mind trying to tread the water of coming unconsciousness, Rudy saw what he thought was a smile on one of their faces as they gathered over him.  The one that was pointing at his eyes, then back at the snowman, groaning excitedly.

Even as he realized what they intended, and he felt teeth bite his leg and scrape bone, Rudy smiled despite the pain.  As his consciousness succumbed to the black waters, he thought: just like human kids.