The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set

by Macaulay C. Hunter

  The exercises were gentle, simple gripping and range of motion. Strengthening the elbow and shoulder came later. If they strengthened those first, her range of motion would be locked where it was. Daniel insisted that the exercises be done every single day, or else Zaley was going to get adhesions and land herself back in surgery. That was very common, people missing their golden opportunity to maximize healing and ending off worse than before. They worked through the exercises, Zaley trying not to cry at the pain, and he asked a hundred questions about school and her life to distract while correcting her form. Tissues appeared so she could wipe her eyes. Embarrassed, she said, “I’m sorry, Daniel. I don’t mean to be such a baby.”

  “This is not being a baby. It is being in pain. Take a minute to rest,” Daniel said gently. A patient on an exercise bicycle asked how Nickel was doing, and Daniel burst out in a wide smile. Including Zaley in the conversation, he said, “Nickel is my cat. This morning I dreamed that rain was falling on my face, just one drop high on my cheek over and over. I opened my eyes and there she was, tapping me with her paw for breakfast.”

  “Nickel’s a funny name,” Zaley said.

  “Well, first I had my Penny, a little gray cat I found when I was in college. She was timid and jumpy, even the thump of my backpack hitting the floor and she’d run away like it was a bomb. But sweet natured. The only people she hated were the girls I brought over. Usurpers! Penny was the lady of the house.” He looked at Zaley sternly and she laughed. “Then I gave my Penny back to God last year. My place was so lonely. And there at the pound was a little gray kitten. My sister believes that Penny told God to send her back, so she could continue to keep the girls away from her man. So this is my Nickel.”

  “One day you’ll have a Dime, a Quarter . . .” mused the other patient.

  They did more exercises. Zaley’s hold on the ball was weak and it fell out of her fingers repeatedly. As the appointment wound to its end, Daniel had her put out her hand and shut her eyes. “Do you feel anything where I’m touching you?”

  “No.”

  “Here?”

  “No.” Zaley opened her eyes and looked down to see his fingers pressing on the outer side of her right hand. “Is that going to fix itself?”

  “I can’t say. This is the ulnar side of your hand and it really affects your grip strength. This side,” he said, gesturing to her thumb, index, and middle finger, “this side is like a fine-tuning. So you might get a proper position on a golf club without a problem, for example, but struggle with the tight grip to hold it. How’s your golf game?”

  “I was great in all of the no times I’ve played,” Zaley said.

  “What’s good,” Daniel paused over his inspection of her hand to smile, and she liked how he ended everything on a positive note, “is that holding a utensil or a pen, those are mostly activities for your fine tune fingers. So we’re going to get your bicep and tricep good and strong so you can do those things.”

  “But I might never have a perfect arm again.”

  “I blew out a knee snowboarding in high school, Zaley. Surgery and PT gave me my knee back. Is it perfect? No. But it is perfect for what I want it to do: bend and walk, even jog. And I have a big scar to impress women with. What do you want this hand to do? What are your goals?”

  Hook my bra. “Put my hair back in a ponytail. Take notes in class. Just regular things.”

  “These are good, reasonable goals. We’ll work for them. It is work though, just like with my knee. Your arm needs your help to heal. It can’t do this all on its own. So I’m going to write down your exercises and you’re going to do them every day.” He filled out forms and gave them to her. As they said goodbye, he promised to have Zaley dancing at her wedding. That was his personal goal, to get her hand to the lucky groom’s. As comfortable as she’d be with an old friend, she promised him an invitation. Her next appointment was on Thursday.

  On the drive home, she thought about guys like him, ones that weren’t sexy yet magnetic, and that magnetism made them sexy. She’d do her exercises twice a day, more to earn his approval than from worry about adhesions. Mom asked if Zaley wouldn’t be more comfortable with a woman for a physical therapist, since Mom certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable doing exercises with a man! Hating her life, Zaley thought she might spontaneously combust from anger. Leave it to Mom to ruin a nice time, since she hadn’t been at the center of it. Needing air in the stuffy car, Zaley shifted in her seat to reach the button with her left hand. Mom cried out that she could do it, and jammed the master control on her side just as Zaley’s fingers touched the button.

  They passed a clutch of mothers pushing strollers on the sidewalk, and Zaley was overcome with loathing. Those babies were going to grow up. Right now it was their time to be fussed and cooed over for nothing more amazing than burping or tasting their feet, but soon the strollers would gather dust as those feet ran away. Amazing would then be a good report card, a great kick on the soccer field, a college acceptance, not ever belching and five little piggies went to the market.

  Once in her room, she texted Corbin to bitch. He sent back a message full of laughing emoticons. Like Daniel was strengthening her pelvic floor rather than her arm. Scandal! Then she laughed on the inside, seeing the absurdity instead of the intrusion. Every day she wrote him some measure of her family’s insanity, the deal he had demanded of her once he knew of her suicide plans. That had shocked him, how she was going to end it all when she was so close to the finish line. He’d made her promise not to kill herself and forwarded the junior college catalogue, job listings, rooms for rent, cheap cars for sale, seeing so clearly in his mind a future that she couldn’t.

  Writing down her family matters daily was shaming, yet it helped to get them down. At night she tried to picture renting a room or apartment, pulling back the curtains not to boards but sunlight. The city had sent another letter demanding the boards be removed.

  The only downside to PT was missing the afternoon gathering with her friends. Since there wasn’t a safe place for them to be, most places closed to Sombra Cs, the park and the library not seeming safe, they hung out at each other’s houses after school. Finals were coming up at the end of February and they did their work collectively in living rooms. The Douglas triplets were so enamored of having big kids over that they brought out their own small quantity of homework and studiously did it among them. Micah’s mothers ordered pizzas and salads when they crashed the Camborne home. At Corbin’s they had giant bowls of soup and at Janie’s breakfast-for-dinner with eggs and pancakes. It was a little uncomfortable there, her parents welcoming but wanting them only to use the rec room and the bathroom attached, serving the food on paper plates and with plastic utensils. In the massive backyard, they took turns riding her dirt bike around. Quinn wanted them to come over but it was better they didn’t, since her grandfather lived with her and he was so frightened of her Sombra C that he insisted she not sit on the certain chair he preferred to watch television. He had not hugged her since the party.

  Mom didn’t like how Zaley wasn’t coming home until six or seven on the weekdays. But it was so much fun, even if the reasons were sad. No one was in sports, Quinn not even allowed to rejoin the choir. No one had a job. Shopping wasn’t enjoyable when people stared at the gloves and moved away. Even picking up ice cream to eat in the parking lot was awkward, Zaley the only one allowed in the Cool Spoon. There was a new STAMPED FREE ZONE sign on the door. Frustrated to see her struggling to carry their purchases, the boys walked in and took them from her. Corbin’s scarf slipped down and the lone patron in the store gasped. The boss yelled at the boys to get out, and at an employee to wipe down the door handle with disinfectant. Austin was angry at this treatment since he’d once worked there, Brennan scandalized to have an injured girl lifting something on his behalf when he had two functioning arms, and Corbin in a temper ripped a green rosette from the window.

  So it was homework and movies, video games and dinners in the only safe places lef
t to them. Sometimes they stayed even later, although Zaley felt like she had to get home rather than try her mother’s patience any further. The texts were so frequent that Zaley was ready to throw her phone out a window. If she did ever live in one of those places that Corbin sent, Mom was going to turn up on her doorstep every day.

  Micah drove her back, and dropped her off at the corner. Zaley didn’t want to consider her parents’ reaction to seeing a stamped friend let her out in front of the house. That was awkward, Micah both teasing and bridling about it until Zaley burst, “You’ve seen my bedroom! Do you know what my mom said when she found out Chloe Goes Pee-Pee was given away? ‘But she’s your favorite doll!’ Present tense! They aren’t rational. This isn’t about you, it’s about them.”

  “Loved the exchange I read in your texts while you were in the bathroom,” Micah said with a conciliatory shrug. “Mom, I’m at a friend’s house. ‘Where are you?’ At a friend’s. ‘Which friend?’ The one whose house I’m at. I won’t be home for dinner. ‘Come home fast! I’m making garlic bread!’ Mom, I won’t be home until seven. ‘I’ll keep it warm in the oven!’ Don’t bother, Mom, I’m having dinner at my friend’s. ‘Bring them over for garlic bread! Quick, it just finished! See you soon!’”

  Looking at her phone, Zaley said, “Christ, you did that word for word. And don’t read my texts.”

  “If I had your life . . . well, I wouldn’t. I’d be long gone,” Micah said.

  “Where would you go?”

  “Anywhere.”

  “Now she’ll be mad that I’m not hungry for garlic bread,” Zaley said as they pulled up to the corner. She wasn’t ashamed of Micah. She was ashamed of her parents.

  On Wednesday they went to Brennan’s home for the first time, splitting into two groups to travel in the V-6 and the minivan belonging to Corbin’s mother. She didn’t want him walking to school with a stamp. It was a tiny place for so many people, some of them wedging about the little table in the kitchen and the rest on the sofa and armchair in the living room. Brennan poured potato chips into bowls, one for each group, and a separate one for Zaley. She shook her head and ate from the communal, understanding why he did this but unwilling to go along.

  All of the seniors had papers for government. For those in Mr. Dayze’s class, the subject was to take a position from one of the semester’s debates and explore it fully in a three-page paper with a minimum of five sources. Austin, Janie, and Quinn had Mr. Lambert, the topic of their papers uniformly tax cut policies, and theirs only had to be two pages. Zaley chose the debate on the death penalty, picking con but having no particular leaning either way. Elania was doing the separation of church and state and Micah took the pro side of segregating Sombra C students from the general school population. She didn’t think the teacher was going to read them.

  Trigonometry was making hash of Elania and Zaley both, so they knocked heads over the assignment together, whined to Micah for help, and at last celebrated its completion by whizzing through English without problem. Muttering came through Corbin’s earphones while he paced between the rooms, as he had downloaded the book his class was reading in audio. The house smelled like cinnamon, Brennan’s mother home early from work since it was a quieter season in the vineyards. She was cooking a massive pile of carnitas while they worked, shredding the pork shoulder with a knife and spatula and putting it back in the oven to crisp. Zaley felt badly for not being able to help, but Ms. Ortega said, “No, no! It is so nice for Brennan to have friends over!”

  “Mama!” Brennan groaned over his algebra. Zaley’s phone vibrated with a text and she ignored it.

  Over her shoulder, his mother said, “I thought what does Sombra C and a stamp do to the shy? They pull back into themselves like a pill bug. Instead you become a butterfly from the chrysalis.”

  “People should know what I am, so they know to stay away,” Brennan said.

  “No,” Corbin said, taking out one earphone. He leaned on the back of Zaley’s chair, his arms brushing her shoulders. She missed when his touch was an everyday happening. “All it does is make it easy for cullers to identify us. That’s what happened to Shelly and Trevor. They weren’t dangerous, but all anyone saw was the stamp. DeAngelo said they were ripping scarves off everyone at the party to check.”

  “Fucking cullers,” Austin muttered in the living room.

  “Still missed one,” Janie called grimly. “I had taken off my scarf already, but my hair’s so thick they didn’t see the stamp.”

  Strange tingles went up and down Zaley’s right arm during their meal, and her left was so tired from writing all day that she fumbled with her fork. In trying to get another napkin from slopping meat and blackened twists of onions on the table, she knocked over her water and sat there red-faced as others cleaned it. Brennan covered his hands in gloves and made her another plate since the first was drenched. She put her hand on the bare skin of his arm and squeezed when he sat back down, pitying him for taking Sombra C so to heart. He jerked away in reflex. “You must not!”

  “Brennan, it isn’t passed this way!” his mother exclaimed. “Why are you so fearful of something that cannot happen?”

  “The specialist said I must always, always be careful, or I could sicken all around me. I must treat my body as a hazardous material.”

  “Dude, that guy was a dick! I had him, too,” Austin said, Corbin nodding fervently.

  “We just got a regular doctor and no hysterics,” Elania said about the girls.

  There wasn’t a scrap left in the pan by the time they were full. Corbin hooked up his game player from home to the television once the dishwasher was loaded and humming. Then he looked on wistfully from the armchair as Brennan and Austin started to play, Janie between them debating if Horizon II or the original was the superior game.

  Zaley was sorry to leave the fun, but she had to get home. Once flying down roads in the V-6, she said, “Wish I could come over to your place tomorrow, but I’ve got PT right after school.”

  “The PT Center is a quarter-mile from my house,” Micah said. “Shalom used to walk back and forth when she banged up her shoulder playing flag football. We’ll drop you off on the way and you can walk over when you’re done. And all of you should come over again for the weekend to get me out of the Imbolc ritual.”

  When Zaley got home, she knocked and cursed the extra locks and latches that rendered her key ineffective. Mom was out on errands and Dad couldn’t hear over the blaring television that someone was at the door. Through the boards, Zaley heard the news perfectly well. Now a walled community was going up in Louisiana and only allowing people without Sombra C to come in through the checkpoint. They were demanding the same disaster relief from the government that the zombie harbors received. She began to go around the house to the back, thinking that she’d wave at Dad through the window, but remembered it was boarded. So it was back to knocking. She was about to call Micah to turn around and pick her up when Dad finally responded. The television roared out into the evening darkness.

  -we don’t want them here! And now for a shocking report out of Oklahoma-

  Mom drove up with a honk. She hugged Zaley, who cringed inwardly, and the argument was underway. Zaley needed to be home regularly for dinner! This home was a place for their family, not a hotel. It wasn’t okay that she went places without telling her parents exactly where.

  -when the small town of Kingdom Come was destroyed last year. Packs of wild dogs-

  Holding to an image of sunlight streaming through a clear window, Zaley said, “I’m with friends doing my homework and I’m fine!”

  -mauling two sightseers to death in a gruesome scene that police say-

  “You see them all day long at school! When is your time with your family? If you can’t make any time for me, why should I take time out of my day to get you to PT tomorrow?”

  -believing these former pets can be rehabilitated, animal rights activists-

  “You don’t have to. I’ve already got a ride with M-
a friend.” Zaley caught her mistake, but not quickly enough.

  It went downhill from there, Mom dragging Dad into the battle with the announcement that Micah was stamped. Over the television, he screamed, “Stay away from those people!”

  Outraged, Zaley exclaimed, “The only reason I’m not stamped is because of those people! They’re the only reason I’m not dead!”

  “She’s going to let one of them drive her to PT,” Mom tattled.

  Gripping the armrests, Dad roared, “You stay out of their cars, you hear me? You stay the hell out! Your mother can drive you to your appointments!”

  -thanks, Sandeep. Gas! We’ve all got it, or we all want it. Months of unrest in the Middle East have caused sky-high prices and pain at the pump. The president is said to be engaged in serious talks about rationing, with a tentative order date of-

  “No,” Zaley said flatly.

  Dad’s eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”

  Looking at him directly and defiantly, Zaley said, “They’ve been my best friends for years and they saved my life at the party. I’d rather be in their cars than some culler’s car any day. Any day and twice over!” You knew, she thought, though she had no proof, only suspicions. You KNEW about the cullers attacking the rehabilitation center.

  Dad had never moved with such speed and grace, practically teleporting from his chair across the room. He slapped her hard across the face and Zaley had a sudden memory of another slap in some other place. Mom gasped and he exploded, “Are you dumb or deaf or something, because I can’t tell! What the hell is wrong with your head? You want that sickness in your body, a stamp on your neck? Everyone knowing you’re disgusting? You think your mother and I will let some zombie live here, eat our food and sleep under our roof? No! No, we won’t! You won’t embarrass us in front of our community and what are they going to say, my daughter taking rides with zombies? Exposing herself to their filth, bringing it here to infect us? You think about that? How you’re putting us in danger? There are plenty of kids at that school, so make yourself some new friends!”