The Zombie Baby War
an excerpt

The leader of the babies was one year and nine months old. Her name was Odette.

"After the famous Odette?"

"What famous Odette?"

"Proust's Odette, the one who loves Swann. A terrible woman," said the questioner, who was prejudiced against women.

The baby regarded him levelly. "I don't know. The book is nine volumes long. How would I have had time to read that? I'm only a baby."

"Of course," he said. "Of course."

"Owen might have read it."

Owen had not read it.

"Ah," Odette said, suggesting disgust: that a man who'd had so much time to read in should not have put some months aside to run through nine volumes of Proust. Her tone suggested that if she had been granted that passage of time, she would have used it wisely, reading Proust, and perhaps producing a written commentary on the subject.