Tom and Cora were on a quest to find themselves. They found Jesus instead.
ESTIMATED READ TIME: 13 minutes
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Thoomp ... thoomp ... thoomp ...
Cora Clarkson pressed the balls of her hands into her eyes and fought back the urge to scream. It was only a few more hours until dawn. She had been stuck on the island for three days—she could handle three more hours.
Thoomp ... thoomp ... thoom—
"I don't know. I think maybe we should let him in."
Cora's hands were still covering her face so Tom couldn't see the gymnastics her eyes performed as they rolled around her head.
Tom Clarkson—Cora's soon-to-be ex-husband—sat on the edge of the bed in a tank top and cargo shorts. He was staring at the door of the shack, a flimsy plank barrier that was the only thing standing between them and Zombie Jesus. On Tom's face was an expression that, three days earlier, Cora would have described as endearing curiosity.
In the dead of the night, trapped inside a beach shack that could moonlight as a tinder box if it needed the extra cash, desperate for dawn and the boat that would take her away from this godforsaken desert island, Cora saw the expression for what it really was.
Blind, vapid—borderline insipid—stupidity.
Thoomp ... thoomp ... thoomp ...
"... you want to let Zombie Jesus inside?" Cora asked, releasing each word slowly as if that might give Tom a chance to catch up with his stupidity.
"Yeah, why not?" Tom replied, not even remotely joking. "I mean, is it just a coincidence that we come to this island to fix our marriage and we just so happen to stumble across Zombie Jesus washed up on the beach? We've been here for three days. We go home tomorrow. We've talked circles around absolutely everything and the one thing we haven't done is talk to Zombie Jesus—"
Thoomp ... thoomp ... thoomp ...
"—and now he wants to come inside." Tom raised his eyebrows at Cora. "Tell me that's just a coincidence."
Cora counted off fingers. "One, it's just a coincidence. Two, although he bears a striking resemblance to Jesus Christ, that thing out there is still a zombie. Three, despite zombie being the operative word for this—" Cora waved her arms apart in frustration, "—this whole fucking night, letting Jesus inside isn't going to fix our marriage—"
"I'm just saying—"
"He's a zombie, Tom!" Cora cried. Her head rolled back and she addressed the dry, thatched roof with an exasperated sigh. "I can't believe this is actually happening."
Tom stood and paced the small room. "What if this was all meant to be? What if we came to this island specifically to find Zombie Jesus? You know? If we never came here—if we never found him washed up on the shore—I dunno, maybe he would have just washed right back out to sea again. What if the big man himself wanted us to be here to save his only begotten son?"
