by Anna Abner
“Is that for me?” I picked it up. Still sealed. Clean and fresh. “That’s funny because I brought you something, too.” I tossed the packet of beef jerky like a Frisbee, and Ben caught it one-handed.
“You must be hungry,” I whispered.
He sniffed the bag, but didn’t open it.
I, however, twisted the cap off the bottle and took a long drink. “Thanks,” I said, wiping water from my mouth with the back of my hand and then tucked the bottle under my arm for later.
“Do you remember music, Ben?” I glanced at the name embroidered on the breast of his dark navy work shirt. “Is that even your name?” It was always possible the shirt belonged to someone else.
But Reds didn’t seem to care about fashion. It was more likely I’d see one wear the same outfit until it rotted off. So, Ben probably wasn’t wearing found clothes. He’d been a mechanic once. Or a janitor, maybe. An appliance repairman?
His red eyes bored into me as he shuffled to see me more fully, the jerky pouch dangling from his left hand.
“I’ve been writing a new song. It’s a little sad,” I admitted. “But maybe it’s appropriate. Maybe that’s what I am. Depressed.” I cleared my throat. “Way down here,” I warbled, “I disappear. My heart hurts when you leave.” I closed my eyes briefly. “I don’t know. It needs work, obviously. But it’s starting to come together. I just need a good chorus.”
Exhaustion settled over me like wet clothes. I hadn’t exactly been sleeping well the last couple nights and running from that toy store pack had drained me. I knelt in the grass, and then lay flat on my back.
Above me an endless ocean of stars stretched to the horizon. There hadn’t been this many stars visible in the sky in a long, long time. It made me feel small and silly to worry so much about the virus when my whole world was a speck in a very big sky.
I heard a rustle and flinched, grabbing the hilt of my sword, my heart kicking into panic mode. But, no. Ben laid down, still keeping three yards between us, and turned his face toward me.
I had never seen an infected person behave so much like a human being.
“Who are you?” I marveled. “Where did you come from?”
His red eyes seemed to glow in the starlight.
“Why are you following—”
“Maya!” Pollard jogged over, his damned gun drawn. Russell was a step behind.
I hopped to my feet and put myself between them and Ben, partly because I didn’t want them to shoot, but partly because I didn’t want them to know I’d been lying in the grass with a zombie.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m okay.”
A throaty growl sounded from behind me. The kind of warning rumble a big dog made.
“What is going on?” Russell demanded, an expression of utter disgust on his face. “That’s a Red. Pollard, shoot that thing.”
“No!” I held up both hands in a silent plea. “He’s not hurting anyone. He’s just listening to me talk.”
“Are you hearing yourself right now?” When it became obvious Pollard wasn’t going to shoot anyone, Russell stepped around him. “Zombies don’t listen. They don’t think. They kill people and eat their organs.” His eyes got all shiny, and I suspected he was reminiscing about his little sister. She’d been murdered and probably devoured by zombies not that long ago. In front of him. “They’re not your friends.”
“He’s not—”
“If it walks like a duck and eats human flesh like a duck… Do you get what I’m saying?”
I was sorry about his sister, but Ben hadn’t been involved. He wasn’t violent the same way other Reds were. He was different. “I should judge him on the actions of others? Now who’s being a jerk?”
“Shut up, Russell.” Pollard didn’t holster his weapon, just slowly shook his head at me. “I thought something bad had happened. You were gone a long time.”
“Forget this.” Russell stomped away toward the truck we’d used to get on the roof and hoisted himself up.
I gave Pollard half a smile. “I found Ben. Or, rather, he found us.” I glanced behind me. Ben was on his feet again. “Let’s go back up top.”
Reluctantly, Pollard came away with me. What he thought of me and my zombie companion, I didn’t know. Maybe that I was crazy. Sometimes everything felt a little crazy, me included.
“Maya,” Pollard said under his breath. “Whatever you’re doing, you have to stop.”
I didn’t pretend not to know what he meant. “Thank you for all your help,” I said under my breath, “but it’s none of your business.” I wished I could flash back onto the roof.
I collected my water bottle and took a couple steps before I realized he wasn’t beside me.
“It is my business.” Pollard reached for my hand and twined his fingers with mine. He had nice hands. Strong. Kind of rough, but in a good way. “Because when he kills you, I’ve got to take care of it. If he doesn’t kill all of us.”
I didn’t say what I was thinking. Ben won’t kill me.
“Maya, I’m worried about you.”
Our fingers were still linked. I hadn’t even noticed.
“I’ll be careful.” I retrieved my hand and returned to the roof. Hunny was sitting in the tent, waiting for me. We laid down together and listened to Pollard settle into his pallet.
It wasn’t easy falling asleep beside Hunny and her doll, and I woke feeling stiff and sweaty and slightly headachey. The morning sun and a faint breeze had turned the small dome tent into a convection oven and I scrambled into my new jeans and white top before emerging into the cooler air on the roof.
While Hunny slept on, snoring lightly and clutching her new doll to her bony chest, I stretched my tired and sore muscles. Pollard and Russell were already up and preparing to leave.
“Morning,” I greeted.
Russell turned his back on me and lit up a cigarette on the far side of the roof.
Pollard smiled half-heartedly. “Did you sleep well?”
“No. You?”
“No.”
I bent to zip the tent so Hunny would sleep a while longer, but her eyes popped open. “What’s for breakfast? I’m hungry.”
“Brush your teeth and hair first.”
She grumbled about it, but we did our morning routine together.
Clean and groomed, we all sat around the pile of backpacks. Breakfast was a dry oatmeal bar from a box.
I observed Russell as I chewed. Last night had been awkward. His response to Ben, while understandable, was an overreaction as far as I was concerned. And a mediocre night’s sleep hadn’t appeased him in the least. The expression on his face told me he hated me, and Ben, too. In fact, I disgusted him.
Forcing down the last of my breakfast I excused myself and headed for the edge of the roof. Ben wasn’t in the same place he’d been the night before. But he was still there, now closer to the buffet restaurant next door. There was so sign of the jerky.
Had he eaten it? Had he slept at all, or had he stood sentinel for ten hours straight? I wished I could study him more carefully and record his decidedly un-zombie behavior. If he had slept, what bed had he chosen? The cold, hard ground under a tree like an animal? Or had he found a more civilized shelter?
I was so wrapped up in my speculations I didn’t notice Russell until he was about twenty feet away. He too was watching Ben. Then he drew his handgun from the small of his back and aimed it with both hands at the Red in the distance.
If Russell was a good shot he might actually hit Ben. My guts clenched inside a rusty vice. “What are you doing?” When he ignored me, I shouted for help.
Pollard reached Russell first and forced his arm down. “Stop it,” he growled. “You’re acting crazy.”
Russell wrestled free of Pollard and backed away, the weapon still in his hand. “I’m crazy?” He laughed creepily. “I’m crazy?”
Hunny bolted and locked herself around Pollard’s waist.
“There’s a little girl up here,” Pollard said, as if it weren�
��t obvious. “Give me the gun.”
“That’s a zombie,” Russell argued, pointing in Ben’s direction. “How can you protect that thing? You know what they do!”
“He hasn’t done anything,” I said quietly, unable to hold my tongue any longer. “He’s just standing there.”
Russell turned bright, bloodshot eyes on me and I cringed. “My sister was just standing there,” he mocked me, “and those zombies didn’t care.” He crept toward me. “Are you some kind of freak? You love zombies? Zombies kill people!”
Pollard stepped right in Russell’s face, and his voice lowered. “Give me the gun. I’ll give it back when you cool off. You’re not thinking clearly.”
Russell stared up at Pollard, his chest heaving. “You’re going soft. You’re gonna get us all killed because of her.”
They had a sort of standoff as each tried to stare down the other. But in the end, Pollard won. Deflating like a balloon, Russell handed his weapon to the older male. Pollard immediately zipped it into his backpack along with his ammo.
Cigarettes and lighter in hand, Russell marched off to the far side of the roof to smoke and calm down. I hoped anyway.
The threat of violence quelled, I exhaled, not sure how long I’d been holding my breath.
Pollard gazed down into Hunny’s eyes. “Don’t be scared,” he said, clapping her on the back.
“I thought he was going to shoot us,” she said in a small voice.
“You know when something bad happens for no good reason and you can’t do anything about it?” Pollard explained. “Well, it can make you really mad.” He motioned toward Russell’s back. “He’s angry. But he’ll eventually calm down. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
I pretended to sort my gear, but I was too distracted and jumpy. Did I carry around an unnatural level of anger, just under the surface, because of what my brother did? And because I hadn’t said anything to anyone after Mason threatened Mom? Or because my dad left me to go to work when he could have stayed?
Maybe.
But how did I get rid of it? How would Russell purge his fury?
“Let’s pack up quick and get on the road,” Pollard announced. “I’ve had enough of this place.”
Maybe it was silly, but I topped off the bottle Ben had given me and tucked it into my backpack for later. Even though I already had a perfectly good canteen.
Within moments our camp was reduced to four backpacks, a doll in a baby carrier, and a rolled tent. Pollard used bungee cords to attach the tent to the exterior of my pack so it wouldn’t go to waste. Everyone savored a final swig of clean water, and then we clamored off the roof and checked the gas levels in the dirt bikes.
After re-filling from the gas cans, Pollard caught me alone standing by the side of the building.
“He didn’t mean it,” Pollard began. “Russell. He’s just…”
“Sad, I know.” I didn’t hold it against him. He seemed like an okay kid. I remembered what I’d been like right after my mother was killed, and I was no ray of sunshine, that’s for sure.
Pollard leaned in, past an invisible line, and our eyes locked. I blinked first.
“And I’m sorry too about the, uh.” He picked at the wall behind me, flaking off old paint and plaster.
The kiss.
I knew exactly what he was talking about. “It’s okay,” I assured. “I’m not mad.” I’d been around him long enough to tell he wasn’t a creep. In the kitchen he’d misread a signal or two.
I rubbed at my bottom lip.
“I just… I like you,” he said.
I wiped my entire mouth and then stuffed my hands in my pockets. “Oh.”
He eased off the wall and leaned even nearer, way into my personal space. “You’re interesting and deep. I get that.”
I briefly caught his eye. Maybe he did. “I like you, too,” I said and then flushed red. “But,” I added, and it was a big but, “I’m so focused on finding the cure,” I mimed blinders on a horse, “I can’t think about anything else.”
Russell climbed onto his bike and assisted Hunny behind him. “What are we waiting for?” he shouted.
“Slow,” Pollard whispered near my ear, gesturing for me to precede him. “We’ll go slow.”
The boys fired up the dirt bikes and, on the I–40, we passed the sprawling Atlantic Mills mega mall with its thirty-screen theater and one hundred fifty different shops, not including the hotel and restaurants ringing the property. Dozens of Reds roamed the parking lot, and every one of them looked up as we zoomed by.
As the sun beat down on my head and shoulders and the wind blew air, heavy with moisture, through my hair I thought of Ben, where he was, and what he was doing. I wished I could explain why Ben was so fascinating, since my interest in him was causing problems in the group. It was part him protecting us from a pack of Reds, part him copying my message on the parking lot, and part him going out of his way to bring me water. When he wasn’t supposed to care about anyone anymore.
But if I actually found my dad’s elixir and someone at Camp Carson mass produced it, the world was going to be a very different place that included both survivors and Reds. I had no clue how my dad’s antiserum worked except that it counteracted and blocked the symptoms of 212R, but people like Ben might need extensive care. They and their rehabilitation would be part of our lives. Why not discover as much as I could about them now? Especially one who acted so human?
I doubted Pollard would see it that way. He was so focused on rebuilding what had once been he didn’t recognize how much things had changed.
With the roar of the bike engine in my ears I didn’t hear the pack of zombies until they stepped out from between two pickups, at least a dozen of them. Pollard tensed, the bike wobbled as if it too was unsure how to react.
Pollard punched up the throttle and plowed into the Reds, who were so spooked they only had time to reach out thin arms and bony fingers. The bike sluiced through the group, and then tipped and skidded away on its side. I fell, my head banged into the dry earth, and I tasted dirt. But I climbed to my feet as the group of frenzied zombies pulled down Russell’s bike.
“Pollard,” he howled. “My gun!”
Hunny leapt like a bunny and sprinted up the embankment.
I screamed her name, and she ran to me through a gap in the pack.
Russell, though, couldn’t break free. He made a last, nonsensical squeal that sent shivers of horror zipping along my nerve endings. Those zombies pressed him into the ground and dug their fingers into him.
Everything went quiet for a single, heart-breaking moment.
“No, Russell!” Before I could stop him, Pollard tore his gun from his belt and shot at the mass of arms and legs, but all it did was draw the zombies’ attention to us.
The instinct to flee was so strong the muscles in my calves and thighs clenched as if I crouched on the starting block of a one hundred meter sprint. I couldn’t be around killer zombies and guns going off. I had to put distance between all this threat and me.
“We have to run!” I grabbed his free hand and pulled hard. “Pollard, we have to go. Now!” He resisted until I got in his face. “They’ll kill us all.”
I didn’t want to leave him behind, but I would if I had to, in order to survive.
There was a whoosh and then a boom as Pollard’s dirt bike caught a spark and all that gasoline exploded. Heat and fumes blew against my face, but we cut to the right and sprinted away from the Reds. Pollard and Hunny were faster, but my knee was healing and I kept up.
We ran off the freeway, circled a smashed delivery van, and broke into the first house we saw. Pollard barricaded the door, and we stood in the wrecked living room panting for air. It was even hotter inside than it was outside, and I scrubbed sweat from the back of my neck.
Hunny clung to Pollard’s waist and whined, a kind of nonverbal plea to fate or God or whatever.
This wasn’t good enough. I paced the room.
I didn’t need a hiding place. I ne
eded to run.
“I can’t stay here,” I announced, my voice loud in the room crowded with overturned furniture and tossed cabinet drawers. “The Reds are too close.” If they ran after us, which of course they would, they’d be at the door in moments. No wood or glass or stucco would keep them out for long.
Reds would tear a house to the foundation with their bare hands to eat prey cornered inside.
Pollard stomped across the room, groaning in pain. But not the physical kind. “Russell and Shelly.” He slugged the wall and a spider web crack appeared in the plaster. “God, Russell and Shelly.”
“Pollard,” I said gently. We didn’t have time to grieve. Later, sure, but not now.
“I’m such a failure,” he shouted, and I cringed at his tone. “They trusted me to take care of them, and they’re dead.” He marched to the opposite wall and slammed his head against the drywall. “They were just kids.”
“Pollard!”
A trickle of blood rolled down his brow. “They trusted me. I’m a curse. I kill people.”
“Pollard,” Hunny screamed, wrapping her arms around him. “You have to take care of me.”
He seemed to come back to himself. “I know,” he said, his arms hanging limp at his sides. “I know.”
“You’re bleeding,” I said, approaching slowly. I pulled my spare tank top from my pack and wiped his brow. Thinking it’s your fault. That was kind of a specialty of mine. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
He stared at me with glassy, unfocused eyes. “I’m not a soldier. I don’t know what I’m doing,” he whispered.
“It’s okay. I don’t either.”
No one in this new world was stable. I thought of Ben following me into Raleigh and watching from afar. There would have to be new definitions for things like normal and stable and maybe even human.
Hunny’s whining morphed into full on crying.
I didn’t think Pollard would say any more, but finally, he said, “Do you know where we are? I don’t want to go in the wrong direction.”
Nodding, I pulled out the map and then passed my full canteen around. We weren’t exactly on the move, yet, but at least we were talking about leaving.