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After I began patching this story together, Gus (the real Gus; the model for the cat in this series) died, which is why this contribution has been so long in coming. She was by my side for much of my life and was the best relationship I ever had, animal or human. I was teaching her to talk. Clearly, she was never going to tell me what it's like to be a cat, but we had conversational exchanges in which she expressed herself in her own way better than I ever will in mine. I didn't want to do any more fiction after she died, but then I started thinking about what she might want.

All of the main, speaking characters in this are based on real people who are probably still alive and running around loose today, and would have no trouble recognizing themselves in the story. Most of the non-zombie-related events actually occurred in real life, and the truly bizarre automobile accident aftermath happened almost exactly as written.

Aside from all that, however, the story itself kind of started out as Dawn of the Dead meets Runaway Train, but when it became apparent there wasn't enough there, it turned into Dawn of the Dead meets Under Siege: Dark Territory. When it became apparent there was too much there, it was re-oriented to Foley's Last Stand meets The Polar Express. That was quite beyond my reach, so it turned into Resident Evil 2 meets Microsoft Train Simulator meets Van Helsing. Unfortunately, even that degenerated into Harry Potter and Foley's Last Stand meet Algebra for Dummies and the certificate of authenticity for the Wendy Whoppers Inflatable Love Doll. So I burned it all and started over. My friends -- the branches of creativity may occasionally bear some tasty fruit, but the tree itself can be one gnarly mother of a stump.

Foley woke up in the cornfield, face down and freezing in the snowy night in the middle of nowhere. He must have fallen off the reaper, which he couldn't even hear now, let alone see. Deadman – the former undertaker and thwarted prefabricated makeshift memorial mogul – saved all their asses with that giant piece of machinery, barreling through the field like some infernal ancient juggernaut, mowing and slicing the decaying cornstalks and bodies alike. He had the floodlights on, too, which – combined with the sheer size of the thing – presented an almost Wagnerian end-of-the-world Gotterdamerung spectacle staged, perhaps, by Jethro Tull (the man), musical accompaniment by Jethro Tull (the group), and starring the Marx Brothers (in all roles).

Aboard the reaper with his friends, Foley almost wished the floodlights were off as they raced through the fields toward the rendezvous point with the rescue train. How many cartoons had he ever seen in which a character is neatly, efficiently, but mercilessly sectioned into limbs, a head, and a trunk? Here, he was watching it happen for real and there was nothing funny about it. He saw whole limbs being thrown straight up, with severed hands traveling even higher. Heads – when they were whole – went somewhere in between and a little off to the right. No trunks were tossed, but the spray of blood alternately wafting and jetting up from directly under the blades pretty much told what was happening to them.

When Foley saw what appeared to be a hand land on the upper part of the boarding ladder, he reached out to flick it off, but lost his balance and fell. Apparently, no one noticed.

Upon regaining his senses, at least he could remember what happened. He quickly got to his knees and brushed off the snow on his arms, looking around. There was no large swath of mowed stalks or carnage within sight. That was bad. Foley stood up and checked for his gun which, he discovered, was probably still on the reaper. He still had a knife under his coat, though, and one of his notorious lengths of pipe. It was a foot long and just right for a spinning, tumbling throw, which was, in fact, deadlier on the things than any knife. He had a flashlight, too, but only for emergencies, and this wasn't an emergency yet.

Suddenly aware of a breeze, Foley walked into it, correctly guessing he was either near the swath or near the edge of the field. It was the swath, and over a rise about a mile away was the reaper, as evidenced by its lights. He started walking quickly toward it and soon found that the mowed stalks also held hundreds of body parts of Deadman's victims who couldn't or simply wouldn't move out of the way of the deadly blades. Surprisingly, they reeked in defiance of the cold and the snow.

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