"Alls I'm saying is maybe you should consider other subject matter."

Whit had that patronizing tone that Andrew couldn't stand, but tolerated. Whit was a good agent, reliable.

"I mean, Jeezus Andy, all this Night of the Living Dead shit is making you morose."

Andrew shrugged.

"When was the last time you ate?" Whit nagged. "Or did a load of laundry?"

Andrew replied with a series of nasal sounds that made a poor substitute for I dunno. Whit pushed a button on his desk. A few moments later, Karen opened the door to his office and poked her head in.

"Yeah, Whit?"

She was always pleasant and smiling. Andrew imagined her with an arm off, eyes vacant, still smiling pleasantly.

"Rustle up some sandwiches, would ya?" except it sounded like sammiches when Whit said it. He took another long appraising look at Andrew and added, "And get this man another coffee. Black. An keep em coming. Thanks, hon."

"You can drop the old white man bullshit, Whit Carver, or I'll shove those sandwiches up yer privileged ass." Karen left and the door slid noiselessly shut behind her.

"Women don't like being patronized any more than I do, Whit. You should know that. Christ, don't you watch the news?"

Whit feigned incredulity.

"Well bless me," he whimpered, sarcastic. "I can see you're a fount of moral superiority, what with the Boozy the red-nosed reindeer bit..."

"I appreciate the concern, but I'll be fine," which was true, relatively speaking. "Look, I just dropped by to tell you that I'm stepping up production."

Whit leaned forward in his high-backed pleather chair, making a reverberant foghorn noise that always sounded as though he was farting loudly and unabashedly. Whit, true to form, ignored the sound while Andrew had to choke back a deep and pernicious belly laugh.

"What are we talking, here – three, four a year?"

"Actually, more like one a month."

Whit let out a wheezing sound like a flat tire, or a balloon whizzing around as it deflates.

"Jee-zuss Christ, Andy. What, are ya giving up sleep or sumthin?"

"Something like that," which was also true, in a way. The only sleep Andrew Price found anymore was at the bottom of a twenty-six-ounce bottle of Canadian Club.

"So lemme see if I got this right. You want to write twelve novels in a year, all based around the whole Zombie theme, and you don't have some huge gambling debt or drug addiction I don't know about?"

"Yeah, that about sums it up. And no."

"Hookers?"

"Christ, Whit. No."

"Andy, ain'tcha worried the whole Zombie thing is a little overdone? I mean, don't you think your flooding a saturated market that's drowning already? What if we can't market them?"

"Trust me, you'll be able to market these."

"What's your hook?" Whit was skeptical, and with good reason, yet the promise of twelve novels from an author with a proven track record was appealing, to say the least. Andrew could see him tallying up his percentage already.

"It's a series. Like Twilight, but without the kiddy porn."

"Big screen potential?"

Andrew nodded, "Video games too. Sooner the better."

Whit leaned back in his chair, which let out a low moaning queef. He laced his fingers together and seemed to be mulling it over in his head. Andrew could almost hear the wheels turning.

"Is there any reason why this can't be spread out?" Whit asked. "I don't want to choke the Golden Goose trying to get more eggs."

Andrew responded quickly, maybe too quickly. "I'm fine. You just give our publishers a heads up. I want these in iBooks and out on the racks as fast as I can puke em up. Alright?"

"If you say so," Whit replied, his tone a genuine blend of reluctance and avarice. "The ad folks who write your copy are gonna shit rocks."

"Yeah, if this doesn't pan out, they can use those rocks to stone me to death."

Karen returned with some decent deli sandwiches and a box carafe, but neither Andrew or Whit had much of an appetite. Whit's desire to mother his favourite writer was only on the surface. With dollar signs in his eyes, he quickly forgot about the state of the hungover Hemingway wannabe and started mentally compiling a list of people he needed to contact.

Andrew excused himself, but only after he'd poured some of that coffee into his Starbucks cup.

"I'll be in touch," he said as he left.

Whit only gave him a little two-fingered salute goodbye, the phone already cradled between his shoulder and ear.

Back in his own neighbourhood, Andrew decided to stop in at the liquor store. The little bell rang as he opened the door, and the Korean gentleman nodded at one of his best customers. The man's wife, busily sweeping the aisles, looked up with a scowl and cursed loudly.

"젠장, 평생버스타는새끼"

Andrew couldn't understand a word of her native language, but got the impression it wasn't a pleasant greeting. She obviously disapproved of his too consistent business, but as they were the closest liquor store to his apartment and he didn't fancy a trek across the city looking for the last legal drug, she would just have to take his money.

An image played out in his mind, the short, scowling Korean zombie feasting on the flesh of her smiling dead husband, curdled blood smeared across her once white apron. He smirked at the fantasies that seemed to come more frequently these days. At times, the Deadline seemed so far away.

Andrew walked briskly down the whiskey aisle with which he was all too familiar and grabbed two bottles of Canadian Club off of the shelf. That should keep me for a while, he thought. Help him avoid the store long enough to improve the Korean woman's mood. On second thought he grabbed a third bottle and turned to make his way to the counter.

He realized too late there was a person standing directly in his path. A woman. Actually a rather attractive woman. Unfortunately, his momentum carried him directly into her and the resulting impact caused him to drop one of the bottles. Should've stuck with two, he thought as it shattered at his feet, sending sweet smelling alcohol spraying all across the floor and up the woman's legs.

"Goddamnit," he cursed, and heard what sounded like the equivalent in Korean coming from the store owner's wife. "I'm so sorry," he offered to the woman he'd run into. "I'm so clumsy. I'd be more than willing to pay for the dry cleaning if you'd..."

"Give you my number?" she interrupted.

Andrew stared back at her, slack-jawed, only to realize the woman was smiling back at him. Sort of. Kind of a smirk if you could call it that, but he didn't get the impression that she was all that angry. More amused if he had to venture a guess. Andrew bent down and picked some glass off of her shoe.

"Andrew," he said, awkwardly. "Andrew Price."

"Natalie."

He offered his hand, which she took delicately, and he led her out of the spreading puddle of whiskey, away from the glass. The shop owner's wife already had a mop and was quickly and efficiently cleaning up the mess. The store owner himself came around from behind the counter, smiling broadly.

"All right?" he offered, "Not hurt?" he asked Natalie.

"Fine, thank you."

"I'm so sorry," Andrew said. "I'll pay for the broken bottle, of course."

"Hey. Man. No worry. Breakage covered. I get you another bottle?"

Andrew held up the two remaining bottles in his hands. "No, I think two should be more than enough."

"Grab another," Natalie said with a wry smile. "For me."

The owner danced around his wife and past the puddle she was mopping up. She directed a muted tirade at him this time, but he deflected it well. He hustled behind the counter and set the bottle next to the register. Andrew added his two and pulled out some cash.

"Please, I insist," he said to Natalie. "It's the least I can do."

She gave him a playful look. "Well, if you insist on buying me a drink then I think we should find somewhere more suitable to enjoy it. Do you live nearby?"

Andrew stared vacantly, it took him a moment to respond. The store owner nudged his arm.

She was clearly out of his league, and Andrew was clearly out of his depth. He was a child jumping off a cliff into the deep end with nothing but water wings. He'd never had a woman so attractive as this come onto him, and he had no idea what to do. Add to that he had been out of the game for some time and wasn't all that confident around women, so when the words finally came out they were a little clustered.

"Justaroundthecorner... Ihaveanapartment..."

"Good. I'd like to get cleaned up," Natalie said, glancing down at her moist and sticky shoes. Andrew followed her gaze and found himself staring unabashedly at her legs, the way her nylons wrapped around her calves, the dark spatters of whiskey on the hem of her skirt.

The shop owner rang up the total and bagged the three bottles, passing the change back to Andrew. In a sort of daze, Andrew took the bag and the change and led Natalie out of the store, the tiny bell ringing merrily as they left.

"꺼져," the shop owner's wife spat as they drifted out into the night.

Natalie threaded her arm through his and they walked together along the sidewalk towards his building.

"It's cold," Natalie remarked, her booze-soaked legs no doubt chilled by the frigid air.

"It's not far."

"Good."