Autor's thoughts waft around in his brain like cigarette smoke--What, you don't have any theories? Even with all of your technology, sufficiently advanced?--but he snuffs them out.

"Zombies?" he asks, blinking. "Is that what they're called? Oswin mentioned something like that, once. Ellen, too, but I didn't think..."

Autor trails off, and then flicks his tongue, trying to remove the taste of one in particular. "I haven't run into a vampire," he says reluctantly, turning to the blanket again. "But I am a vegetarian? So that probably has a lot to do with it."