Sometime during dinner, the light outside had faded to darkness, but my eyes had adjusted and I could see pretty well in the quarter light of the room. I saw a new expression on her face, and it wasn’t the brash one to which I’d started to become accustomed. This was more wary and sad.
“Frank, I want to ask a favor of you, and I really would like to keep it just between you and me. Are you okay with that, or should I not ask?”
“Charlie, I think I owe you. Whatever you need to ask won’t go any further than me.”
She took a deep breath. “I need someone to hold me for just a little while. That’s all. I’ve been running hard for months now and I’m just about tapped out. If you can swing some really good ‘Charlie’s a great person’ improv with the cuddle, I’d be really grateful for that, too.”
What else was I going to do for someone who helped me take a bath?
I slipped my right arm under her head, and pulled all of her close to my chest. I felt tension in her body that I couldn’t see, and I truly wished I’d studied massage in my travels.
I started the way she asked for it. “Charlie’s a great person. I don’t think I’ve ever been taken care of so well by anyone in my entire life.” I held her a little more tightly, and I kept up my improv motivational speaking for a long time. Somewhere in between the giggles, a tickle or two, and tears, she relaxed and fell asleep.
I did the same.
Chapter 19
Sunlight was burning a hole in my eyelid. But what woke me up was someone quietly calling my name, or at least I thought that’s what I was hearing.
“Frank. Frank. Wake up. I need talk to you.” Something passed between the sunlight on my eyelid and the sun. Shadow. Movement.
I opened my eyes and looked down the room toward the window, which was open. Someone or something was crouching on the floor in the shadow underneath the beam of morning light. I was half naked and unarmed, and there was a voluptuous blonde pinning my other arm to the floor.
“You want to tell me who you are before I get up and kill you?”
“No, not kill me yet. Bajali send me.” It was a slightly quavering voice. Everything in my head clicked, and my blood turned to ice.
“Mister Yan?”
“So. So. Yes. Sorry to visit you bedroom like this. Bajali find me, ask me to tell you.”
“You’re dead.”
“Ay. Yes. I dead. Very sad. Very sorry. Frank, you always my favorite. Please not tell Chunhua I here. Okay?”
“I won’t tell Grandmother Yan you were here.” I was scanning the room to find the nearest weapon in case I had to move quickly. I didn’t rate my chances very high for two reasons. Number one, he’d gotten the drop on me. Number two, he had been a lifelong practitioner of several different styles of Chinese martial arts. As a zombie, he would be even faster than he had been in the prime of his life.
“So. Thank you. You always my favorite. Bajali tell me to find you an say project goes very slow. Hightowah think of new plan. Maybe poison water supply. Also, they come try an kill all you soon. Think all you dangerous.”
“When?”
“Maybe three, four day. Not good.”
“No.” Then I really had to ask, “Mister Yan, why did you come to see me for Baj?”
“Ay-yah. Frank, I dead. I do not like. I love all of you. I love Chunhua. I do not want you all hurt, dead, maybe like me. Baj find me in the crowd. We talk and make plans, then Baj tell me to see you.”
“I’ve missed you.” I never got to say anything to him before they took him from us. He was a sweet person and a good neighbor.
“Oh, I miss everybody so much! Maybe you tell Chunhua you know I love her?”
“Of course I will. Are you going to go back to them?”
“No. I go away. I not eat another person. I go now. Remember, you most favorite. Good man.”
“Goodbye Mister Yan.”
He went out the window and shut it behind himself. The soul of politeness, even as a zombie.
“Frank?”
“You were awake for that?”
“Yeah, from about the point when he told us we’d be attacked in three or four days.” Charlie sat up, and blood started to flow back into my right arm. “You’re not going to go after him, are you?”
“No. See? About two weeks after he was taken from us, we installed anti-personnel IEDs around the neighborhood. There are seven of them and four tripwire triggers,” I was interrupted by a muffled explosion that shook the windows in my room, “between here and the road. I think he found one.”
“Should we get up?”
“No. Someone else can handle picking up the unidentifiable pieces. I want to stay here and remember him for a little while before I have to face everyone.”
My right arm came back to life, and we sat there in silence for a little bit. She looked a little uncomfortable, which wasn’t surprising considering she didn’t know Mister Yan or any of the history involved. I came to a conclusion. Either I had to start moving or I would end up sitting there all day and we’d lose precious time.
“Charlie, are you planning to stick around for a few days or are you going to head elsewhere in the next 24 hours or so?” The concept of her being more to me than a friend’s sister seemed like it came out of the blue. “Because, if you stay, there are a few things I need to know.”
“I’m not going to take that question the way it seemed to come out, because I am not a coward. I came here to live with my brother, and that’s what I plan to do, come Hell or high water.”
“All right.” Hearing that cheered me up a lot, but I had to file the cheer away for later. “Have you had any professional combat experience or training? Any preference for weapons?”
“Second degree black belt in jujitsu. We all hunted with Dad from the moment we could hold a shotgun. So, shotguns, bolt-action rifles, Japanese swords, 1911-style pistols, chain, and a steel pipe.” She looked thoughtful for a moment and added, “I also messed around with Mexican knife fighting with some of the migrant workers’ kids when I was growing up.”
The Libido Tabernacle Choir started a rendition of “I Can’t Stop Falling In Love With You.” Quixote, Sancho, and Sancho attacked them, beating them about the head and shoulders.
“Shiny. Next question: do you want the shower first or shall I?”
“That’s a Hell of a cognitive shift there, Frank. I’ll just wipe myself off if you want to shower, or I can stand guard for you if you’ll do the same for me.”
I pointed to the chest of drawers by my desk. “Pistols and revolvers in the top drawer. There’s ammo in the second drawer. Knives are in the third drawer. Unusual stuff lives in the bottom drawer. Go crazy. You can guard me first.” I figured I might as well leer a little bit. “I’ll guard your body while you’re naked and wet.”
“You are one sick puppy. Now you want me to fish around in your drawers for your gun. Should I be worried it’s loaded?”
“My weapon is always loaded. Sometimes I pop the clip out just to look at my fresh rounds.”
We started laughing and ended up having a hug. She got up, rooted around in my drawer, cooed with delight, and pulled out my Desert Eagle. It was a shade too big for her hands, so she put it back, but she found my matched set of Taurus Judge revolvers.
“Frankie Clip o’ Rounds, do you have slugs for these?” Charlie asked that question with enough bedroom in her voice that the gang war in my loins ceased fire, perked up, signed a peace treaty, and broke out the popcorn.
“Yes, I do, Charlotte Sex Leprechaun—second drawer, left side, rear. Maybe 20 shells.”
“Damn, boy! You say the sweetest things!”
“Mmmm. Caveman speak firearm. Caveman take metal stick.” I shook the Man Scythe with meaning and prehistoric gravitas. The blade opened just slightly. I think it was eager. “You toss Caveman Glock, maybe?”
She did toss it. It made me infinitely grateful that I put the safety on before I store my guns.
We scramble
d down the stairs, laughing like little kids. For a while I forgot how serious things were likely to get in the near future. I suspect the horsing around did the same for her, and I knew she needed it, if only because she came out here to be with her brother, not to find herself in the middle of a suburban gang war. Sometimes the universe has other things in store for you when you think you’ve made a safe choice.
I did notice something disturbing, but not about her. I was moving a lot more easily than I had the night before.
She gave me a funny look when I put my weapons on the concrete floor, and I motioned for her to do the same. She did. I looked her in the eye and asked for a two-part favor.
“Would you peel the bandages off, then look at my back and tell me if it looks better than it did yesterday?” I turned around.
“Oh, fuck me,” she said once the bandages were off. I had a lot of opinions on that comment, but I let them go.
“I guess it looks better then?”
“Yeah. The bruising is gone. Completely gone. None of the skin is even pink, except around the stitches.”
“All right. Favor, part two. Poke me where Shawn did yesterday, would you?”
She did. It felt like being poked, not being rammed with a red-hot iron rod.
“Life has now, officially, become more complex. I’m going to shower now, before I start to get worried enough that my brain shuts down. Still feel like guarding me, Charlie?”
“Yeah. I’m happy to.” That’s what she said, but there was almost no inflection in her voice.
I showered, dried off behind her back, and took over guard duty. She undressed behind my back, hopped in the shower, hopped back out, dried off, and threw her “greens” back on. I did not peek, or even consider it. There was too much on my mind.
Charlotte Marie Cooper, my new friend, babysitter, and sister of my favorite mechanical genius, probably had a few things on her mind as well.
We made speedy work out of slipping into new clothes and appropriate tactical rigging. It was easy to stand outside my accommodations while she changed, not a single word passed between us after we left the storage room I’d turned into my bathing chamber of delights. There was tension, but I had no way of knowing what the source of her backing away was, other than the possibility that the guy she spent the night with might be carrying an interesting viral package.
There had been enough touching to ensure that if it passed skin-to-skin, she’d be infected by now as well. It would have been easier to tell her I’d just given her a raging case of syphilis or the clap. How do you tell someone you’re sorry for passing along an infection that might turn her into some kind of undead monster?
Worse, how could I cope with the fact that I seemed to be in possession of a life-changing microbe? I sure as Hell couldn’t ignore it; I also couldn’t figure out where I’d gotten it and why I’d never had a fever or my own personal Hunted by Zombies experience.
It didn’t make sense.
“Frank.” Charlie broke the silence, and that surprised me. “We need to find Jaya first and get her take on this. Then we figure out what the next steps need to be.”
“I agree.” Mission defined and decided upon, we went forth.
It was a nice day out, people were milling around. Gina and her husband were walking very carefully, carrying a green plastic trashcan between them. That was probably the replacement for the one Mister Yan set off.
“Frank!” Gina waved to us with her free hand.
Mark, holding the other side of the trashcan carefully, gritted his teeth, furrowed his brow, and said, “Sweetie, we really shouldn’t jostle the can like this. REALLY.”
“Mark, it’s solid, electrically activated, and is not going to go ‘FOOM’ because I waved at someone. Relax before you give yourself kidney stones.”
I imagine that in a normal world, we would have looked like two couples talking shop about recycling or making your own compost. The trashcan would not have been explosive, of that I’m sure.
“So! It’s good to see you up and moving around, Mister Pull the Hand Grenade Pin!” Gina was one of those freakishly positive people. I often thought that R.E.M.’s “Shiny Happy People” song was written because Michael Stipe had met her at some point or another. “I’d hug you, but I bet your back hurts a lot!” She turned to Charlie, “So! You’re Charlotte, Shawn’s baby sister! That’s so great! Nice to see you! I’d give you a big hug but... ”
“You’d have to put the can down, and it would make Mark twitch,” Charlie finished off with a smile.
“That’s right! Wow! You’re just as sharp as your brother!” The perky. It burns.
“Frank,” her husband said, looking at me.
“Mark.”
“Somebody stepped on one of the pressure plates.”
“Yes. The explosion woke me up.”
Mark nodded. “They already hosed down the wall.”
“Good.”
“Talk to you guys soon.”
“Thanks, Mark. Gina, have a good day, and thanks for your excellent work!” I actually allowed a little perky to slip out.
“Aw! Thanks! Remind me to give you a big hug when you’re all better!”
I nodded, and we quickly started walking toward Jayashri’s house. Mark and Gina went the other way, slowly and carefully. Odd thoughts were vying for time inside my head. On one hand, I felt like Charlie and I should be walking arm in arm, shades of that moment of Alternate Universe from the night before. On the other hand, I was very wrapped up in being afraid I’d managed to get myself stuffed with a mutant, life-altering thingamajig.
“Is Gina always that perky?”
We stopped in the middle of Jaya and Baj’s neighbor’s lawn, and I thought about the question for a moment or two. “No. Not all the time.”
“That’s a relief! I don’t know if I could stand it for more than a few minutes without hunting for booze or a hypodermic full of Thorazine.”
“Whatever you do, don’t give her alcohol,” I cautioned Charlie.
“What happens then?”
“The perkiness doesn’t go away. It just gets faster, more intense, and she starts trying to make out with everyone. The making-out part usually happens after she’s taken off all her clothes.”
“God! That little gal is a self-contained party, isn’t she?” Charlie had a look of astonishment on her face, and I could see the sort of stuff that was going on between her ears. It looked like it was probably a little lewd, and I made a mental note to ask her about it if any of us survived the coming week. More than that, I wondered if I was in there anywhere.
Jayashri must have heard us coming or seen us walking up the street, because she had already opened the front door by the time we got to the steps.
“Good morning, you two. Did you get some rest?” She ushered us into the house, and gave Charlie a little push to keep her moving toward the kitchen. “No, breakfast is served in the dining room. There will be time to lounge after our meal.”
“Jaya, you don’t have to keep feeding us like this!”
“Charlie, speak for yourself!” I added, with a smile on my face. “If Jaya is cooking, you do not ask questions. You sit down, eat it, fall head over heels in love with her, and never want to leave.”
“Francis, did you not hear me tell your new friend that you are a silly boy?” Jaya cuffed me on the shoulder. Her eyes narrowed when I didn’t flinch. “Speaking of you, silly boy. You appear to be moving more easily today than yesterday. Was your night that refreshing?”
“Ah. Busted before coffee. This always happens.” I sat down at the table because I didn’t want to get into the whole thing while standing up, in case my knees gave way in sheer terror. “Charlie knows what’s going on, so we don’t need to be cloak-and-dagger about it.”
Jayashri did not stop moving; she simply came over to the chair I was in, pushed me over onto the tabletop, and pulled my shirt up in the back. I don’t know what she said, but it was long, impassioned, and featured “Gane
sh” in there somewhere.
“Please tell me you did not lie to me about the fever or chills.”
“Jaya, God as my witness, I told you the truth.”
“Oh, for your sake I do hope so. If you have passed that virus to this lovely woman in the action of your physical pleasure, I will... Oh! Your karma will never recover!”
“Hey! Wait a minute here. Did you just dance around assuming we had sex last night?” Charlie’s voice was a strange combination of icy and amused.
“You did not?” The look on her face was pure incredulity.
“No, we didn’t.”
My dearest doctor stood there, looking back and forth at us as though we were having some kind of telepathic ping-pong game only she could see.
“Are you telling me, Charlotte, that as a woman, you did not see how he looked at you?”
“He’s a guy. They all see the boobs and they stop.”
Jaya said something containing “Shri Krishna” and shook her head. Then it was my turn.
“You are going to tell me you did not see her batting her eyes and moving in such a manner as to accentuate her physical charms?”
“Should I have noticed?”
“My goodness!” She put her hands on her hips and glared at both of us, one at a time.
“If the two of you were the last fertile people alive on the planet, the human race would die out. I tell you, if Americans understood the power of flirtation... Gracious! You children frustrate me so!”
She walked over to the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room and motioned for Charlie to come with her.
“The least I can do, before we give the barbarian his morning coffee, is teach you a little bit about the secret heart of men. That one,” she pointed at me, “might be hopeless at his age, but you are not! Come on.”
Everything was going right over my head. I had expected a little less sedate of a reaction to my apparent biological changes, and I really didn’t think I’d start the day, instead, by having my mating rituals critiqued by my dearest female friend. It seemed to me life was continuing to bend further sideways while I was trying to walk along in a fairly straight line.
Blood Soaked and Contagious Page 15