LOOK AT ME!
Furious.
They had moved from Maine to California, although she didn’t remember why. Had she ever known? She had been old enough at the time of the move to be told. So she had known once, but forgotten. Mom spilled her purse everywhere on the long drive, rooting around for a tissue just as Dad drove over a big bump in Nevada’s endless road construction on the freeway. Coins and lipstick and tissues and her cell phone, the million things Mom stowed in that purse were all over her lap and the floor, rolling under the seat where Elania bent down to retrieve them. Dad was apologetic for not seeing the bump in time to slow, Mom annoyed but saying it wasn’t his fault, and Elania collected the tides.
Had the boys been there? Had they been born in Maine or California? That was something she should know.
Rachel Elania Douglas.
They had gone to the beach one of those days at the nameless motel. The sunlight was annoying to her yet the sound of the waves had been rhythmic and calming. If she closed her eyes, the waves removed the annoyance. She knew where they were, she didn’t know, she knew again . . . Micah wasn’t Micah but some other name, a bizarre name, and that was gone. Austin would remind Elania what it was.
The name didn’t really matter. Her brother’s name did. Reuben. That was his first name, and they didn’t call him that. No one called her Rachel either. Conor and Cormac and Reuben . . . That was wrong.
She stood in the motel shower and was unsure of what to do. She watched television without a clue of what was going on. She looked at Zaley and faltered on who she was. Sally? Zaley. Of course it was Zaley! How could Elania mix up those two? She looked out into the darkness (Austin knew where they were) and pondered if she was facing north, south, east, or west. She pondered the name Sally, too. It wasn’t Micah’s other name. It belonged to someone tied to Corbin, someone that Elania didn’t like very much.
She was dying.
Her eyes moved up and up the triangular shapes of trees, seeking the fence and the watchtowers. Neither was there. Right! They had escaped. That was why they’d been in the motel. She had a flash of memory, the four of them rushing through the park and dropping over the wall to wait for the car. She had been very frightened that the Shepherds would force her back behind the fence.
She didn’t have much more time.
Oh, of life she had longer, two weeks perhaps. But of herself . . . that was fading. She was slipping through her own fingers like water. If she had gotten to the point of Conor and Cormac and . . . then it wouldn’t be much longer before she saw her reflection and didn’t recognize who that girl was. She wouldn’t know what a reflection was, or think to look in a mirror at all. Her throat thickened to consider it, and the choke to come out went unnoticed by the others. They were lost in dreams.
The pills wouldn’t freeze her infection again. That wasn’t how it worked. Once they quit, they quit for good. If she had taken this much in the last few days and failed to halt the infection . . . Nothing was going to stop it. She was on the downhill slide to bird cries and raging and insanity, her flesh rotting off her living carcass as she rampaged. She was turning into her own nightmare. Tomorrow . . . she wasn’t positive that when she woke up in the morning, she would know who she was. This could be the last time that she was sure.
Even now, she wasn’t quite so sure. She should practice. Rachel El . . .
She drifted.
The gray stream rushed off and she startled, sorting in panic through what was in her mind. Her name was Rachel Elania Douglas. She was a senior at Cloudy Valley High School. She was Jewish, and her heritage was a mixture of African, Irish, and Polish. Her three little brothers were named Conor and Cormac and . . .
. . . and she was turning into a zombie.
The note! She had written the note. It took a long time when she couldn’t remember what she wanted to say. Every curve and slash of a letter felt awkward. Where was the note? She felt in her pockets for it. Nothing. She had to have put it somewhere, in a backpack or in the car, or she left it at the motel. They had forgotten the note and Zaley both at the motel . . . Annoyed and upset, the emotions washed away and she was numb.
Today it was Conor and Cormac and . . .
Tomorrow it was Conor and . . .
The day after that was . . .
. . .
There would be no day after that, not for her, incapable of grasping a day. The virus nibbled at a brain until its holder was gone. In the quiet of the night, she was being eaten alive.
Rising from the blanket with the three sleeping forms, she lifted the gun from Austin’s side and walked out to the green that was black in the darkness. She had just these moments left.
In her mind’s eye, she bent over to collect Mom’s spilled belongings from her purse. It was one of the millions of memories that served little purpose, other than it had happened to Elania so there it was in her brain. It meant nothing. She saw it again and again, the wave carrying in Mom’s things. She felt herself stoop to retrieve them. Could she trade in this worthless memory for her brother’s name?
January, February, March, April . . .
One, two, three, four, five, six . . .
I before E, except after . . .
Their family had had a cat, and the cat’s breed was . . .
Where was she going? She didn’t know. She didn’t know where she was or why she was carrying the object in her hand. But she was moving away from where that damn fire had been. Though it was out, the memory was agitating. LOOK AT ME! She had wanted to hit it. Make it stop hurting her. Her brain said NO loudly so she didn’t burn herself. NO to no to . . .
. . .
Over the green gone black she went and her eyes parsed the shapes in the darkness. This was a way to go, so she was going this way.
They had frightened her so much. She remembered her nightmares about zombies. Those had been fully justified fears once she was within the fence. They went wild in their last weeks, reduced to raging beasts and less than that. They gouged out their eyes and pissed themselves; ripped up people and swatted at light. They pounded on the doors to be let in, mad and insensible. When they were hungry, they ate from the bodies lying around. Elania hadn’t seen that, but heard someone else talking about it. A body had been dragged away into deeper shade, and the person had seen teeth closing on the rotting fat of the belly.
She was becoming one of them. When Austin had shined the light in her face (she still remembered Austin but what was his last name?) she wanted to shove him away. The rage had been almost overwhelming. Today’s shove was tomorrow’s punch was the next day’s bite . . .
This was the last time there would be an almost. The last time she showed restraint. She would be what filled others’ nightmares, and she wouldn’t know.
They might catch her, feral and raging and rotting, and return her behind the fence. She wanted to howl at the thought of being in there. The fence and the meals, the smell and the pounding . . . the kings . . .
No, there hadn’t been kings. There had been Elania and her friends, a baby in her lap, a man with flowers. She liked that man. All of them had cowered from the ferals.
She was nearly feral. There was no place for the sane to hide from her, not the lodge with its broken doors . . . she chased her brothers and shouted I’m going to get you! They screamed and ran away in peals of laughter. People would not be laughing to run away from Elania now. They would just be screaming.
I’m going to get you!
She had stopped walking. How long had it been? She made her feet go forward.
The boys had thought this game was hysterical when they were three and four years old. She was going to get them, give them a hug and kiss the top of their heads! Yuck! Germs! They scattered. Conor was the only one creative in where he chose to hide. Usually she gave up rather than investigate every nook and cranny of the house. Cormac always hid in a closet or under a bed, and the other one . . . the third boy went to the laundry room. He hid in different places wit
hin the laundry room, but for some reason, he almost always went there. He never suspected that she would remember from a million chase games before. The laundry room was safe. He didn’t even hide well. When he heard her footsteps coming, he giggled wherever it was that he’d squashed himself. She pretended to not hear the giggling and searched the room. Then he’d tumble out to give her a hug, and flee as fast as his muscles allowed. She gave him a head start so he’d think he was faster than he actually was.
It didn’t start with a C. Conor and Cormac and C . . . that sounded wrong. It didn’t start with an R and it didn’t start with a C and it started with . . .
The car went over the bump and the purse dumped out on the floor. Elania stooped to pick up the tides washing in around her feet. Six or seven times she reached up between the seats with her hands full, Mom putting everything into her purse.
She reached a tiny hill and walked into the sand beneath it. It was an odd hill, only a few feet tall, and topped with a cap of grass. The side of the hill was scooped out and filled with sand. She had walked all the way to the beach somehow.
They had gone to the beach where she sat in the sand and listened to the waves with her eyes closed. Why had they gone to the beach? She’d just loaded into the car when her name was called, and sat there until Austin cried there’s Micah! He had been angry.
His name is -----, not Shorty.
Austin wasn’t angry for that reason. The truck. Micah had stopped walking so the truck could hit her and Austin was bolting over the road. Zaley and Corbin thought both were about to get creamed by the Mr. Foods semi. They had screamed and Elania just watched the run and the tackle, the tumble and disappearance.
Then she was on top of the little hill. There was a spread of grass and trees around her. No fence. She had prayed to not die behind that fence and here she was, somewhere else. That prayer was a crystalline clear memory that stayed in her mind as the rest melted away. She was frightened of having an ugly death, and every death behind the fence was ugly.
Here and now, every direction was open to her. She sat down upon the crest of the hill. She didn’t want to die, but especially not behind that fence!
Surprised, she discovered that she had brought the gun along with her. Not for Shepherds coming to drag her back, or for zombies out there in the night. This was for another purpose, if she could find it.
Yes. That was still there.
She had been given gifts in her life, of family and friends. She knew God and love and kindness. Now it weighed upon her to give a gift, out of the love and kindness given to her. She was afraid to give this gift, the only one she had. A mitzvah. The word was in her head minus its definition.
I’m going to get you!
No. No! That wasn’t going to be her legacy. She accepted the fear and sat with it. Her fear didn’t outweigh the terror of becoming I’m going to get you!
It was dark.
Conor and Cormac and . . . It devastated her to have forgotten him, the goofy one of the three, the slowest runner who wanted to be a policeman. Then she drifted, and sat there on the hill unaware of time. Her fingers hooked upon a thought, and this one she had had many times before of the purse spilling to the floor.
She was dying.
Nothing could stop it. But she could choose how she died. She chose not to go feral and violent, ravaging her own body or those of other people. She chose not to be a nightmare that haunted someone else’s dreams. God, whatever God was, had delivered her from the fence, answered that prayer she gave up to Him with both hands. The answer to the prayer of being cured of Sombra C was no, but to die out here was yes.
That was an incredible gift. When she breathed, the air to come into her lungs was clean. This place was beautiful, a wild, quiet place of her own choosing, and it welcomed her to stay.
She was going to die, but she would die free of the fence.
The note.
She had put it in one of the backpacks. Although she couldn’t remember doing it, her fingers recalled the sensation of the zipper going down and up. It was with one of them. They would find it unless she had put it somewhere else or forgotten it entirely . . .
Elania had been given gifts, and in gratitude, she was giving one back. It was the only right thing to do. When a hand was held out to help you, you held out your other hand to help someone else. That was the way to move through this painful world, allowing help and helping others, forming a chain of it so no one was left out.
It was no longer so dark when she lifted the gun to her temple. The light was going to grow and grow (LOOK AT ME and that made her furious) and her eyelids were going to sink and sink in a pained response to the sun going up. The car bumped beneath her, the purse spilled to the floor and she bent over to pick things up . . .
The purse . . . the purse.
Percy.
She grabbed onto her youngest brother and held his name tightly to her heart. It wasn’t the memory of the spilling purse that had been important. No! It was an association. All along, her brain had been trying to give her the name another way. She’d found him through a side route in the riddled nexus of her mind. Percy. His thin little arms wrapped around her leg in an embrace and he ran from the laundry room with a laugh. His name is Percy, not Shorty.
Night was ending. She only remembered night beginning.
It was time. If she waited any longer, she wouldn’t remember what to do.
Conor and Cormac and Percy.
“Thank you,” she whispered to God, and pulled the trigger.
Corbin
They woke to the blast. Corbin rolled over indifferently. There had been periodic blasts all through the night. Likely from Crazy Town, crazy people doing crazy things at a comfortable distance, or from Little Mexico. He’d just roused a little at each one and promptly gone back to sleep.
Something bumped his leg and he opened his eyes. Austin was searching through the blanket, his fingers scrabbling in the folds. Then he screamed for Elania and jumped up, running away through the golf course. You’re going the wrong way, Corbin thought to Austin’s fleeing back. There wasn’t any need to freak out over Elania going to the toilets.
“What the hell?” Micah yawned. Blinking in surprise at the sky, she said, “Did you take my watch?”
“No. No one ever woke me up for mine,” Corbin said.
Both of them stared out to Austin in bewilderment and got up to go after him. Still in a daze of sleep, Corbin put on one of the backpacks. Micah folded the blanket hastily. Leaving their belongings untended was going to be seen as a donation to whoever got to the trees first to pick through them. Packing took only a few seconds.
The blast of the gun hadn’t disturbed anyone in Ph.D. It was normal background noise here. The two of them jogged down to the green. It wasn’t hard to keep track of Austin. They just followed the screams for Elania. He was dashing back and forth in the distance. Then he screamed even more loudly, barreling ahead in a definite direction. Corbin and Micah sped up to a sprint.
They found her in the gray light of dawn.
She appeared to be asleep on the crest of a hill, lying on her back and with one arm thrown over her stomach. Her head was turned away from the sand pit. She was so still that Corbin knew the truth in his body before his mind accepted it. Elania was dead.
Scrambling up the hill and kicking sand everywhere, Austin threw himself down at Elania’s side to cradle her face. Corbin followed in a trance. Blood was leaking from the wound on the side of her head, going down the green and forming a tiny puddle at the bottom.
Micah picked up the gun and Austin shouted, “Get rid of it! Get rid of that thing!”
“Okay, Aussie,” Micah said, and slid it down the back of her jeans.
“Why?” Corbin asked dumbly. He didn’t know to whom he was directing the question. Maybe to Elania, the one who could no longer answer. She hadn’t been the same since the confinement point, shut down and quiet, but he hadn’t expected this . . . “She was depressed?”
Of course she was depressed. The confinement point had marked them all. He hadn’t been able to handle the Shor-Bee’s drive-thru yesterday without flashbacks, and white-knuckled it through the second. But they were going to the harbor, the harbor where her family was waiting for her, and now she had done this? Corbin was too stunned and confused to cry.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Austin whispered tearfully to Elania. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
How could she have killed herself when they had gotten out of the confinement point? If she had gone to the fence when they were inside . . . if she had asked Micah to stab her, it made sense. They had all been on the edge of death in there. Here they weren’t; here they had a chance. He shouldn’t be looking at her body on the hill.
This was a dream.
It wasn’t. Elania had shot herself through the head. Some people survived shots that only passed through one lobe of the brain. Back to front, front to back, that travel path did massive damage yet could be survived if the bullet didn’t ricochet inside of the skull, and if the bullet wasn’t huge or one of those kinds that split into pieces. People weren’t the same afterwards, left with paralysis or difficulty walking and talking, but some could make vast improvements. You weren’t exactly who you were before, but you were still yourself.
It was the shots that went through the midline of the brain that were catastrophic, and that was what Elania had done. Had they had found her a single second after the shot and called an ambulance, she still would have been gone by the time help arrived.
The frontal lobes governed executive functioning and retained long-term memories. He didn’t want to look at a friend and think scientifically about how she had come apart.
Called an ambulance. It was an out-of-date concept, one for a world where Corbin snatched up a cell phone and dialed the emergency number. That wasn’t this world. If there had been time to call, he wouldn’t have known where to get started in hunting down a pay phone.
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 114