by Jason Durman
His eyes bored into me like a power drill on high. "Sighing ain't the way to respect yer dad."
I tried to think of a comeback, but I couldn't. Somehow, through all my annoyance, I felt like I was once again 12, and any sort of rebuttal I threw would quickly and efficiently seem whiny and meaningless.
Dad did that to people.
Still, I tried.
"Dad," I said, carefully as I could. "You're a manifestation of my current frustrations and grief from being locked in a featureless room for God knows how long. If anything, any disrespect I show you is disrespect that I'm showing myself."
Dad nodded, sagely. "Ya raise a good point there, sweetie."
Inexplicably, I felt a slight glow of pride, until he added,
"But that doesn't mean you can disrespect me."
I conceded defeat. "Yes, sir."
He merely grunted, and looked around the room with quiet disinterest. "Ain't a bad setup."
I gave him a rueful look. "You're saying I should appreciate it?"
He shrugged. "Beats starvin'."
"I'd rather starve in a shack than live out my days locked in a box."
"So what are ya gonna do about it?"
I observed the wall, which remained exactly the same in appearance as it did for the past forever.
"What can I do?"
"I'm askin' ya."
"Well, let's re-iterate." I gestured around the room. "The vents are perfectly usable, if I happened to be the size and dimensions of a sentient credit card. They gas me out whenever someone comes in, so the element of surprise is removed. My nails are oh-so-lovingly clipped and filed whenever I'm knocked out, so I can't even scratch anyone to death. Not to mention, I don't even know the damn layout of the place, or even where I am, so if I do manage to break free, then I could run out the door and fall off a cliff into the ocean for all I know."
"Marzia."
"Yeah?"
" Use your damn head. "
I turned to him, almost in disbelief. "What do you-"
"You know damn well what I mean, kid. Use that big brain of yours and figure it out."
"What? Do I headbutt my way through the wall?" I asked, dubiously. "I mean, I know ya said I've always had a thick skull, but…"
"Quit sassin'."
"Yessir."
He sighed. "Remember when you went to that camp in the wintertime? The one in Montana for disturbed youths or somethin'?"
"Yeah. You said it would 'toughen me up.'"
"And they hit you and forced ya to go on marches and made ya to sleep outside in the elements without your boots so you couldn't run away?"
"They weren't very good about instilling proper camping protocol."
"And the last straw for you was…?"
"When they took my pocketknife and tossed it in the river." I recalled. It wasn't just the act of disarming me that pushed me to the edge. I liked that fucking knife.
"What did you do then?"
"Well, they caught me every time I tried to hightail it, and they nearly handcuffed me to my cot after I-
"
"What did you do that worked?"
"The letter." I said. We'd wrote home once a week, so I suppose the little camper brats' parents didn't worry too much. Of course, the counselors read them over and tossed them if the contents were too incriminating for their liking.
I, however, had a workaround in mind.
"I wrote a coded message under the stamp," I said."And told you in the letter to peel it away for my collection."
It was an old trick that I'd read once in some POW history book, and it had stuck with me. The counselors, for their part, didn't seem to like Axis-internment camp stories nearly as much as I did, and never suspected a thing before Dad bailed me out a week later.
I remembered this fondly, mostly because I got out of that clusterfuck and left none the wiser. Now, on the other hand-
"You're dead." I pointed out. "They don't let me send mail, anyways. I don't think you can get me out of this one."
"That wasn't the point."
"What was the point, then?"
He sighed, and gave me a cold look, his eyes narrowed. "You take chances where you get them."
I let the silence sink in for a moment..
"That's it?" I asked, staring past him at the wall. "I take the chances I can get?"
"Did I stutter?"
"Y- No, look." I started, and then focused on him and not the wall. On him, or the spectre of him that my stir-crazy mind had conjured up. "There aren't any chances left, Dad. I used them all. I'm stuck here. De- he's dead. I got myself into this mess, and I doubt I can get myself out of it." My voice almost quavered, but I was nearly too angry to let it. "I'll be in here until all the Green Flu ends, or maybe I'll be here until I die, but they'll clone me or something, or maybe bring me back as a zombie so I can cure the zombies."
I choked back the urge to scream as a clenched my teeth. "That's what I'll be," I muttered. "Queen of the fucking zombies."
His expression didn't change, save for a small softening in his eyes. I could have imagined it.
"Know this, Marzia." he said, almost sadly, "Opportunity knocks."
And then he was gone.
I stared in the hole of space where he used to be. Or not be, I suppose. You can't really tell with hallucinations.
"Opportunity knocks." I echoed, muttering to myself. "What kind of navel-gazing self motivational kind of bullshit is tha-"
Knock. Knock.
I froze. The silence was deafening, and I could hear my ears ringing.
Knock. Knock.
"What the ever-loving fuck?"
It seemed to be coming from just outside. I couldn't see through the two-way mirror, but I could hear the the sound of something hard- wooden, maybe- hitting the walls. It was, oddly enough persistent.
Almost rhythmic.
Knock. Knock. CLUNK.
All of a sudden, the mirror disappeared, replaced with a view of the hall outside.
Usually Caldwell would be standing there, being all smug and shit and just out of my reach, but this time around there was no-one. Just an empty hall.
And a middle-aged dude in a janitor's uniform. He was wielding a mop and…
Dancing? I'm not sure. It looked a little too coordinated to be an epileptic seizure. Whatever it was, he was really into it.
With the lights in the hallway, came the sound as well. It was a radio crackle, the same thing I heard when I was being spoken to from the outside. Instead of military bullshit, however…
"Won't you, please let, meeeeeeeee, back in your heart!" the janitor sang. As he swished around, the mop handle hit the walls. Suddenly, the handle hit the panel on the side- and I saw the mirror again. The audio, however, was still turned on., and I could hear the broom handle hitting the walls again. Knock knock.
I wondered, briefly, if I was hallucinating again. The guy kept singing.
"I want you back! Yeah, I do now."
I also wondered why a top-secret military operation would have a bozo like this guy mopping their halls.
"Ooo, ooo, baby!"
Additionally, I wondered how he had accessed the panel presumably controlling the lights, and accidentally turned on the audio as well.
"Yeah yeah yeah yeah!"
(How the hell didn't he notice me, in any case?)
"Na na na na!"
I considered these many things, as the man sang on through his favorite Jackson 5 song.
I didn't know what I could do with this information. But for now, I had full sight of a hallway that had previously been unknown to me, which was better than nothing.
"I want you back!"
Maybe I actually had a chance.
"And let me live again!"
Opportunity knocks, after all.
Chapter 16
I didn't sleep.
Not for a moment.
I want to. My eyes feel heavy and blurry. I don't even feel like turning over. I need sleep.
>
But I'm too tired. And too worried.
Trevor is taking watch so I don't hear him going grrrn-hck. Him and Eve are quiet tonight, too.
Russ makes sounds, though. He's asleep, I can hear him breathing slowly and he doesn't smell awake, but sometimes I hear him saying words.
"Skip… don't go…"
He sounds sad. Like he's calling someone.
"I'm sorry."
I hear Eve and Trevor turn around. Eve shakes her head.
"Poor man."
Trevor grunts. "He was getting better for awhile."
"Maybe it was all the stress from today…"
I'm tired of being awake. I sit up.
Trevor turns to me. "Can't sleep?"
I shake my head. "No."
"Sit watch with us a little, then. You'll be bored enough to knock off soon enough."
I roll off the mattress and walk over. Eve shoves a chair towards me. "Did Russ scare you tonight?"
I think about my answer for a second. "No. Not really."
"No fibbing?"
"Uhhh." I try and remember what fibbing is. "No."
She's worried, but she just shrugs. "I'll take your word for it."
We sit for a little. It's quiet.
Then I turn to Trevor.
"Who's Skip?"
He gets a painful look on his face, and I smell unsure in the air.
"Skip was…"
"Spencer," Eve cuts in. "His name was Spencer, but everyone called him Skip."
Trevor nods. "He is - was - Russ' baby brother. Just by a few years, but he was always a kid to us."
"They were a real team, those two." Eve says. "Always scheming. Always planning. Just when we thought we were cornered, they'd come up with something and we'd escape"
"It was him who came up with the idea to get to Charleston." Trevor says. "They were Michiganders, those two. Owned a boating business before the state was half-way overrun."
"They saved our lives," says Eve. "They got me out of the house I was cornered in, they helped Trevor escape from the fire station just when it was being swarmed- it was so much. They gave us an option when both sides of the border meant death for us."
"They stuck together like glue," says Trevor. "Always taking the same watch shifts. They'd be up the earliest, radio on, mapping every darn safe house all the way to Charleston, planning it out. Skip…
he was a little reckless, a little goofy... but it balanced them. Russ would calm him down, and Skip would lighten his brother up.
"It was a month ago," says Trevor. "We were in Ohio. Full day walking, and still a couple of miles to the saferoom. We were all ready to drop."
"Skip…" Eve starts. "He suggested a shortcut."
"It was through an alleyway," she said. "It looked harmless enough, but-"
"Russ didn't want to." Trevor says. "He had a bad feeling about it. They argued, but eventually we went with Skip's plan."
"We…" Eve cuts in. "There was one of those fat ones in there. A Siren. It ambushed them, and barfed on Russ."
"It went downhill really fast," says Trevor. "Next thing we know, the horde's swarming us. Eve n' me are 30 zombies deep, all sides, you can't see or move a foot either way. Just when we got to grips with it, outta nowhere-"
"A Charger," says Eve, "It ran right through us. I dodged it, but it pushed down Trevor, and whacked Russ to the side."
"But the one it pinned," says Trevor. "Was Skip."
"Russ was knocked out against the wall," says Eve. "It felt like forever before we were able to fight off the horde. By the time we could throw a Molotov at the Charger and shoot it to death…" she seems to choke a little. Trevor pats her on the back.
"It was too late," he says, quietly. He shakes his head.
"Poor little kid, laying there, covered in blood. Every single bone in body was broke. He couldn't even take a breath to say his last words."
Eve sighs. "Russ regained consciousness right afterwards. We couldn't stop and wait- all we could do was confirm that Skip had died, and then get Russ to the safehouse. He in shock, that man.
Babbling like like a cuckoo, I don't think that he even knew where he was, or what was going on."
"When he finally woke up all the way," says Trevor, "He didn't believe it. Thought it was one of Skip's stupid pranks. He kept calling out for his brother, and when it finally sunk in, he couldn't talk. He just stared at the wall, didn't say anything, nothing. He barely ate or drank for days. His arm was broken, but it didn't register to him. We couldn't get through to him for weeks."
"We had to stay in the area," says Eve. "Just so we could scavenge for everything. We couldn't move as a group, not with an injured man. So we had to manage."
Trevor nods. "God was watching us, 'cos the military didn't bomb the place, and we were able to find what we needed."
"But Russ…" Eve says. "He was out of his mind. Gone loco with grief."
"How?" I ask.
Eve shakes her head. "Loss… everyone acts differently. For him, he just shut down. Even after he managed to started to eat again, he looked like a zombie himself for awhile. It was like... a thousand mile stare. Like those soldiers who get PTSD. He was a different man entirely- he didn't smile, he didn't laugh, he didn't even cry. It's like something in him died."
"Something in him did die," says Trevor. "And I don't think that part of him is ever going to heal. It'll take a long time, at least."
"How long?" I ask. Trevor shrugs.
"Longer than you'd think. It's not anytime soon, that's sure."
"Is that why…?"
"He's so coarse?" Eve says. "I suppose. We did think that he… went a little bit around the bend. Off the edge."
"Off the edge?"
"He became paranoid. When he was able to move around on his own, he barred the doors like a madman, you saw how it was when you first met him. Then there was that one day…"
"We had been out scavenging," Eve says. "Russ took his first real watch in awhile. We thought that most of the infected had been cleared out, but…"
"There was one that found the saferoom," says Trevor. "Unfortunately, it found Russ in there."
"What happened?" I ask.
"We don't know for sure. All we found was its body…"
"...riddled with bullets," says Eve. "Far more than it would have taken to kill it. It was like he just shot it, over and over, even after it died…"
"That's how he dealt with it," says Trevor. "It was like he found an enemy to hate. Them."
"The infected," says Eve. "They took everything from him. His life in Michigan, his brother, his future…" she shakes her head. "If every zombie were to drop dead right now, he wouldn't shed a tear, cure or no."
She looks over at me. "Why do you look so pale? Are you sick, acho?"
I breathe in. "No. Just…"
I look for words. "I'm surprised."
"About Russ?"
I nod. "I guess… I know why he does what he does."
"It's not justification for him acting like an ass, though," Eve says.
"I guess."
Trevor shrugs. "At least he didn't go completely cuckoo."
"Cuckoo?" I ask. It sounds familiar. I think it has something to do with a bird. Or a clock. I don't know.
"Nutso. We've seen some real scaries out there in the badlands."
"Like what?"
"I guess the apocalypse brings out the worst in people," Eve says. "It just… breaks you. Always watching your back. Every silhouette you see in the distance looks human, but it's not. When you're out there you're looking for someone else, someone alive, uninfected… but all you get are enemies.
You always listen, you're always on the alert, never resting, knowing you can never go back to the way it was before…"
Trevor nods. "One guy kept blasting rap music whenever we got near the hotel he was in," He says.
"That was Ohio. He called over a horde and tried to get us killed. Then there was that girl in Indiana, I think."
"She was crazy, that one," Eve says. "Her boyfriend became infected, but she refused to believe it.
She kept him strapped to a table, tried spoonfeeding him, wouldn't let us put the poor bastard out his misery…"
She stops and stares at me. "Denver? She clicks her fingers. "Denver?"
I shake my head.
"Sorry.
"Just thinking."
Chapter 17
"General?"
"Yes, doctor?"
"...they're dying."
"You're going to tell me why, I assume? How many?"
"A large percentage, sir. We think... They're too weak. Their bodies can't handle it."
"And you've been giving them the treatment?"
"In increasing increments, sir. No change."
"How do you plan to fix this?"
"The ones that survive… they have certain characteristics. Sir."
"Such as…?"
"Well, most notably, well, our boys, sir. And the convicts. They've had more desirable outcomes than the civilians…"
"Summarize."
"Athletic. More muscle mass. The... stronger ones."
"Then it isn't an issue."
"How so? Sir."
"I have resources at my disposal, doctor. Resources that we need."
"You mean…?"
"We're fighting a war, doctor, and we'll fight more in the future. This will allow us to win them quicker."
"But-"
"Is it your job to give me questions, doctor, or is it to give me answers?"
"...Understood. Sir."
"Good. We're moving forward, then."
"Yessir."
Chapter 18
Snow fell.
It descended softly, kissing the black lamp posts that were half-buried in the unshoveled drifts, the flakes softly adding themselves to the already-copious banks that blanketed the ground.
There was a hissing sound, almost faint, as the snow landed. It continued, undisturbed, for while.
Then it was broken by a footfall.
Several, in fact. They all felt heavily, tiredly.
The snow squeaked as four different pairs of feet landed, in a haphazard march with no beat.
With it, came a muttering from one of the steppers. It turned out to be cursing.
Watered down cursing.
"Dang slippin' fang darn flippy ships…"
"Trevor?"
"Yes?"
"I know you hate swearing."
"I do."
"This is worse. Please shut up."