She's been dead for seventeen days. But I swear I can still smell her. The perfume she always dabbed behind her ears. Mixed with gun oil and rainwater. It clings to the collar of my coat. To the pillow I carry. To the air itself, sometimes, when I'm not ready. I thought maybe it was hallucination. Or grief. Or infection. Even the others noticed. "Who's wearing flowers?" Ronny had asked on day three. We met two years before the fall. She worked in a pharmacy. I fixed solar panels. Saved for a small house. Argued about names for kids we never had. Then came the sickness. And after, the screams. She didn't die dramatically. No swarm. No firefight. Just a slow cough one night, followed by a fever that took her under. She made me promise not to shoot her unless I saw her eyes go white. "I want to feel like I'm still me," she whispered. "Even when I'm not." She came back snarling. No recognition in her face. But even then—her scent was still there. Even as she lunged, I smelled lavender. She scratched me across the chest. Deep, but not enough to turn me. Just enough to remember. I pulled the trigger with my eyes shut. Now, I carry her scarf in my pocket. I press it to my face when the nights get too loud. Sometimes I see her in crowds of the undead. Not the rotting ones. She's always in the background. A woman in the new group—Trish—started wearing lilac soap. Another woman offered to help wash my jacket once. I told her, "If the smell goes, she's really gone." The rest think I'm unraveling. But I know the difference between madness and memory. But her scent remains. Tonight, we camped in a burned-out greenhouse. Everything reeked of ash and mildew. Like she was standing behind me. But the scent lingered. I felt married again. Maybe that's my curse. …but that I remember too well. that's the cruelest kind of infection.