Zombies Don't Cry Read Online Free PDF

arguable case that “passing on” invariably and necessarily involves alterations in that sort of disposition. But continuity survives, even so. The once-myopic eye can still see, and the once-living mind can still understand. We might be different people, but we’re also the same.
    Zombies don’t cry, and nobody laughs at their jokes, but zombies can still love the people they loved in life, and can still be in love with the people they were in love with in life and nobody—not even the most skeptical philosopher in the world—is entitled to doubt that, or reckon it less than a tragedy if that love becomes suddenly unrequited.
    * * * * * * *
    Mercifully, there wasn’t a great deal of poking and prodding while the Mighty Burkers of the Royal Berks examined their handiwork and pronounced it good. There were no jabbing needles at all, except for the drip that was still attached to my arm, even though I was no longer nil by mouth . They even took the catheter away, eventually.
    Mostly, they wanted to see what I could do on my own; they tested the wiggle in all my fingers and toes, and gradually moved from the extremities inwards, checking sensation and co-ordination. They tested my hearing, my speech and my eyesight as well as my sense of touch, and even did a sniff test of sorts to ascertain whether my sense of smell could still recognize such crude indicators as amyl acetate and Jeyes fluid. They weren’t big on answering questions, though. While the tests were in progress, the Mighty Burkers were way too busy, and when the tests were concluded, they were in way too much of a hurry. They had other dead people to resurrect, other minds to remodel, other albinos to throw on the dole.
    When they addressed me at all, they called me “Mr. Rosewell” or “Nicholas,” as if to emphasize that I was a new man. I didn’t bother to tell them that my friends called me Nicky. After all, I thought, if there was ever a good opportunity to seize the reins of my own destiny and renickname myself “Nick,” this was it.
    Did I want to take it, though?
    I wasn’t sure—but for the time being, I thought, I’d let my friends continue calling me Nicky, for old time’s sake, and I decided that I’d always be Nicky to Helena…and I’d let the Resurrection Men continue calling me “Mr. Rosewell,” or “Nicholas.”
    “Must be stressful coping with the extra work-load,” I said to one harassed junior who lingered longer than most. He wasn’t wearing a name-badge but had introduced himself, in a mutter, as Dr. Hazelhurst. “You probably had enough work when you only had to cope with the living, without having to tend the needs of the afterliving as well.”
    “Actually,” he told me, “it’s far from being a nuisance. Afterlife medicine is the hot specialism right now—other areas of expertise haven’t exactly run out of ignorance, but it’s hard to make any sort of major breakthrough on such well-trodden ground. Afterlife is wide open, saturated with unknowns and conundrums. No one knows much about its patterns of pathology yet, let alone its treatment spectrum. It’s where big names are going to be made in the next ten or twenty years—and the more we understand about afterlife, hopefully, the more we’ll understand about life. It’s a very competitive field, but I’m hoping to go into it full-time when I’m fully qualified.”
    “Much competition from zombie doctors, is there?” I enquired, mildly. Rivalry between living and afterliving doctors was a significant minor theme on Resurrection Ward .
    “Hardly any, as yet,” he admitted. “The requalification requirements are too tight. So far as I know, there aren’t any afterliving doctors in England outside of London.”
    “Discrimination by any other name would smell as rank….” I murmured.
    “It’s a bit soon to be getting militant, Mr. Rosewell,” he said, sternly, “but if marching on parliament’s your thing, you’ll probably feel right at