by Megan Berry
Everyone is staring at me expectantly, like they want me to break down and cry like my dad. I know I should, but for some reason I can’t. I’m too numb. I glance down at my arm to avoid their gaze. I squint at the tube that’s taped to the top of my hand. I reach over and pluck at it, and Silas grabs my hand again.
“Don’t pull on that,” he tells me. “It’s your IV drip.”
I look around again. I’m still in the cabin and this IV thing is still in my arm. “Why?”
“Silas left that night and cleaned out some supplies from the local hospital,” Ryan surprises me by answering. “I think the saline drip is the only reason Abby made it,” he tells me honestly, and I know I’m not mistaken when I see a look of grudging respect cross his face.
“I wish I could’ve been back sooner,” Silas tells me, and I reach over and take his hand and give it a small squeeze.
“Thank you,” I tell him, wanting him to understand that I don’t blame him for not being able to save my mom. I want to say more, but my eyes start to feel heavy and I let my head sink back down onto the pillow. Silas’s face blurs in front of my eyes so I close them. Mom’s face pops into my head, and I feel a horrible sense of loss.
Something cool and wet touches my forehead and pulls me awake. I glance up and am surprised to see Megan washing my forehead with a face cloth. She shouldn’t be taking care of me, not with her injury, but I seem to be having trouble stringing words together. I settle for grunting at her, and she actually smiles at me.
“You’re awake!” she says, and even though it’s pretty obvious, I still nod my head. “Your dad will be happy,” she says before reaching across me.
I follow her arm with my eyes and see my dad slumped over on the edge of the bed. Megan shakes him awake, and he jumps up like he’s been electrocuted.
“Is she okay?” he blurts out before his eyes have even had a chance to focus. He stares at me, and his eyes fill with tears. “Thank God,” he exclaims as he crushes me in a big hug. His weight forces the air from my lungs, and I let out a weak cough.
“I think you’re squishing her,” Megan reminds him gently, and Dad steps back hastily and gives me a sheepish look.
“I’m so sorry,” he apologizes, and I shake my head at him. It’s okay.
“Her color looks much better today,” Megan says as she presses a bottle of water to my lips. I take several small sips. The water makes me feel strangely full. I finally shake my head and she takes it away. I try to glance around Megan, to see where everybody else is, but the cabin seems kind of empty. Jack is asleep on the couch, and Abby looks like she’s in the bed next to me with an IV drip hanging beside her, but other than that, Megan, my dad, and I are the only ones in the cabin.
“Where..?” I start to ask, my voice only a whisper that ends in a bad crack. Megan stares down at me for a second, like she’s trying to guess what I’m saying. “Where?” I repeat again, and understanding finally dawns on her face.
“Ryan, Silas, and Regg went out to get some more wood,” she tells me. “Our supplies are low after the week we’ve had.” I stare at her in confusion. A week?
“You were out for a long time, sweetheart,” Dad tells me.
“You were just as sick as Abby and…” Megan pauses and flushes beet red. “As Abby,” she continues.
As blurry as everything is, I can still remember about my mom. I know that is what she almost said. I look at Dad, and he practically looks like a zombie. It looks like he’s aged ten years in the last week. His pallor is gray and there are dark, nearly black circles underneath his eyes. But despite everything, he’s smiling at me right now, and I can see the relief on his face.
I feel horrible: horrible that my mom is dead, and horrible that my dad has been put through even more hell, on top of everything else, with me getting sick. My eyes prick with hot tears, and then a horrible keening wail erupts from between my lips, and I can’t control the flood. Dad wraps me in his arms, his own eyes dry this time, and Megan slips away to give us privacy.
I have no idea how long I cry, but when I’m done I’m exhausted. My eyes feel swollen and sore, and I’m breathing hard, out of breath from exertion.
“You should try and get some rest,” Dad whispers to me as he sits up, and I notice that the front of his shirt is soaked all the way through from my tears. I stubbornly shake my head. I’ve already been lying in this bed too long, letting life pass by without me. I struggle until I’m sitting up, and after all of the crying and screaming, my voice feels less foreign.
“I want to get out of bed,” I tell my dad, making him frown a little.
“Jane,” he starts to argue, but I shake my head.
“Please, Dad,” I beg, and his face softens.
“Why don’t you try and walk around a bit, give your muscles a stretch,” Megan suggests, coming over. For once I’m grateful to her. My dad doesn’t look convinced, but he helps to pull me out of the bed. My legs tremble as I accept the weight of my body, and slowly he lets go.
My knees buckle and I start to go down, but he catches me. I want to scream at how weak my body is. Dad gently sets me back into bed, and Megan tosses the covers over top of me. “You knew that was going to happen,” I accuse her, and she gives me a small smirk.
“Of course I did, but you didn’t, and you are the type of person that wouldn’t listen until she sees it for herself,” Megan says, surprising me with the accuracy of her claim. I give her a small sheepish look and sit back against my pillow without complaint.
I spend another two days in bed before I’m able to get up and walk around. I get tired more easily, but every day is a little easier. My stomach has shrunk so much from not eating that I’m even skinnier than I was before.
The first day that I’m able to stand, Dad insists that we bury our dead. I stand at the window with my dad and Jack as Regg digs two more holes underneath the trees where Sunny and Barry are buried. Though Dad makes me turn away when they carry the bodies. I don’t argue with him about it. I’ve seen more bodies than I can ever hope to forget, but the one thing I don’t want to see is my mom wrapped up in a sheet and being put into a hole in the ground. Tears leak down my cheeks, and both Ryan and Silas come forward and take turns hugging me. Abby hobbles over from the couch; she has tears in her eyes as well. She holds my hand, and it’s a comfort. If anyone knows what I’m feeling right now, it’s her.
When it’s done and they are buried, we all go outside despite my dad’s protest that Abby and I shouldn’t be out in the cold air. We stand beside the fresh mound of dirt. I don’t know what to say, and I don’t think my dad does either. He’s barely able to keep it together. I suspect that if I wasn’t here, he would go completely off the rails.
We stand in the bitter wind, saying nothing, until Abby suddenly opens her mouth and sings the most haunting rendition of “Amazing Grace” I have ever heard. Her words are sad and make me cry again, and the wind freezes the tears to my cheeks. I don’t bother wiping them off because they are being replaced too quickly. I always loved Abby’s voice, and I know my mom did too, so it’s kind of fitting.
When Abby’s done, she’s practically panting for air. I know she’s still recovering, but selfishly, I am so glad she did it. Dad reaches down and picks up a handful of loose dirt and tosses it onto the pile. He gives me a small squeeze and then he turns and walks away without a word. He doesn’t head back into the house, but instead starts walking towards the trees.
I turn and give Silas a worried look, but he shakes his head. “He will be okay,” he promises, and his words actually do make me feel better. I reach down and mimic my dad, taking a handful of dirt and sprinkling it over my mother’s grave, then I walk forward and do the same for Jack’s sisters. Jack shoots me a grateful look through his own tears, and then I turn and head back into the house.
Everyone does the same after me, and we all head into the house. Silas sees me struggling and swoops down to pick me up and carry me. “What about Abby?” I protest, certain
that if anyone needs to be carried, it is probably her. Silas turns so I can see around his broad shoulders. I see that Regg is also carrying Abby, while Ryan is letting Jack lean heavily on his shoulder as they walk back.
We get inside and Megan starts boiling some snow so she can make us hot chocolate to warm up. I watch her smooth mechanical movements as she hangs the pot over the fire. It’s such a contrast to the way my mom used to hum and skip around while she was working. Tears threaten to prick my eyes again, and as though he has a sixth sense about this stuff, Silas reaches into his pocket and hands me a tissue. We’ve all lost people we’ve loved. I’m not special in my grief. In fact, I was so lucky for so long that it’s almost like Karma is finally catching up with me, laughing at me for thinking I’d really escaped the apocalypse unscathed by loss.
“I’d just met Naomi a few days before this shit storm began,” Jack says suddenly, and I glance up sharply, torn from my own horrible thoughts as I stare at him. He isn’t talking to anyone in particular; he’s just staring at the floor, fiddling with the necklace that Naomi used to wear around her neck all the time. None of us dare say anything to interrupt him, and when no one speaks, Jack does. “My dad left my mom and me when I was ten,” he explains, his deep baritone filling the cabin, and I’m fascinated, unable to look away. “He remarried so many times, I finally stopped bothering to learn the names of his new wives.” He lets out a humorless chuckle at this. “He never had any more kids that I knew about, and when that bastard died, it was one of the happiest days of my life.”
I swallow. I can’t even imagine feeling that way about my dad, though I’m not a complete baby, I know that lots of people don’t have parents like mine…like I did.
“A couple weeks before the zombies showed up, I received a letter in the mail from Naomi. I didn’t believe her at first, and the picture she sent looked nothing like me.” Jack cracks a small smile. “All the women he married, her mom wasn’t even one of them. We did a DNA test to make sure it was true…” Jack shakes his head. “I wasted precious time with that damn test. I could’ve been spending it with her.”
“Don’t think like that,” Regg says, finally speaking up. “No one could’ve predicted what was going to happen.”
Jack nods, but I know that look very well, and he’s still blaming himself.
“She was staying at a hotel when I first heard about the outbreak, and even though I’d just met her, she was all I could think about. I just wanted to protect her.”
“You did,” Silas says, and I turn around to look at him, surprised that he would be the one to say something right now.
Jack lets out a hoarse laugh that has no humor to it. “That hole out back begs to differ,” he fires back, and I wince at the reference to the grave.
The door opens suddenly and my dad creeps in, his cheeks flushed red from the cold and his eyelashes frozen thick from his tears. Silas turns so he is included in what he has to say next.
“You protected her from every threat you could,” Silas argues back fiercely. “You protected her from the most horrible death imaginable—the zombies. You gave her the safest place left on this earth that you could find, and you provided for her.” Silas’s voice cracks, and my pulse skyrockets in alarm. Dad is also staring at Silas, his face slack as he listens to every word.
“The flu used to kill thirty thousand American’s each year,” Regg offers up a piece of worthless trivia.
“Yes,” Silas nods towards Regg. “Thirty thousand American’s, and that was back when we had access to hospitals and state-of-the-art medical equipment and supplies.” Silas slaps his hand against the table for emphasis, making me jump. “This was a horrible act of nature, but it is not on you. It’s not on any of you,” he says, looking right at me. “You did your jobs, you protected them, and they both went peacefully in their sleep. That’s all we can hope for these days.” Silas glances over at the flames dancing around in the fireplace, and I know that he’s thinking about his family. The picture of his brother that I accidentally saw in the album dances around in front of my eyes, and I put my hand on his arm. He doesn’t shake it off, so I know he’s really hurting.
“What happened to your family wasn’t your fault either,” I tell him, and he stares blankly at me for a minute before giving me a nod and turning away, and I let out a sigh. I don’t know if Silas will ever forgive himself, or Jack, or even my dad. I know there was nothing I could’ve done for my mom and even I’m struggling with guilt. It’s the curse of being human; we always want to change things and have trouble accepting it when we can’t.
“Maybe we should all try and get some rest, none of us are back at one hundred percent yet,” Megan suggests after handing out the hot chocolate. I know it’s good—the perfect ratio of chocolate and water— and it’s a rare treat that we don’t get all the time anymore, but it might as well be a cup of cardboard to me right now. I don’t even argue as I drag myself to my bed. Abby and I are back to sharing now that the flu has passed. Megan would normally be sleeping with us, but she’s taken the couch from Silas since sleeping next to other people jostles her shoulder too much.
I lay in bed and stare up at the ceiling. I can’t stop thinking about what Silas said tonight. It was the flu. It was no one’s luck, just a bad run of luck. I roll over on my side and my eyes land on Jack. He isn’t sleeping, but he has his back to everyone and is facing the wall.
Jack sleeps with his shirt off. I can just make out the crisscross of scars that line his back from the zombie bites. I stare at them until they blur before my eyes, letting my mind wander. An idea strikes me suddenly, and I sit up in bed so quickly that Abby gives a startled shout, drawing every eye in the cabin. We no longer live in a time when a yell can be dismissed as nothing.
I don’t know if I should share my idea until I’ve had a chance to think about it more, but at this point I don’t think I’ll be able to keep it to myself.
I search out Silas in the dark and just as I knew he would be, he’s staring back at me. “You said we couldn’t do anything,” I tell him, and slowly he nods.
“Yeah.”
“What if we could though?” I demand, my heart hammering in my chest so loudly that I’m surprised no one else can hear it.
“You’re not making any sense,” Dad tells me from the bed that he and my mom used to share. Jumbled half-thoughts are cascading through my brain so fast I can barely seize on to just one.
“Jack is immune,” I point out, and everybody shrugs like I’m just throwing out random knowledge. “He’s immune!” I say again. “We’ve never seen anybody else like that. What if he’s the only one?” I’m still receiving blank stares, so I know I have to spell it out for them. “What if there is someone left who could make a…” I struggle to think of the right word.
“Vaccine?” Megan chimes in, her voice shrill with excitement at the possibility.
“Yes!” I shriek, nearly jumping up and down in excitement. “If we’re immune then we can start to fight back. Maybe one day we could get our old lives back—the kind that had medicine and electricity and grocery stores!”
Everybody is sitting up now, and I can tell by their faces that they are all thinking about it. I look over at Jack to see what he thinks about this idea and he slowly starts to nod.
“If I can help save anyone, of course I’ll do it,” he answers my unasked question, and my heart nearly explodes from joy.
“It’s too dangerous,” Dad interrupts, raining his parental right all over my enthusiasm.
“Dad!” I protest, but he’s already shaking his head.
“It’s the middle of winter. We don’t even know if there are any places like that that still exist.”
“The zombies are frozen,” I counter back. “There is no better time.
“Maybe the zombies are all dead,” Abby suggests. “Maybe they won’t thaw out again in the spring and life will go back to the way it was.”
I frown at her. While she has a valid point, it doesn’
t exactly help my cause.
“There is only one way to find out,” I say, making everyone in the cabin frown.
“Don’t even think about it,” Megan says, but Silas is nodding and so are a couple other people.
“I’ve been wondering about this myself,” Silas admits. “It would be good to know one way or the other.”
I clap my hands in excitement. “It’s decided then,” I say with authority, even though I know that in reality I have very little authority over anything. “Tomorrow let’s go get a zombie and thaw it out in front of the fire. We need to know what happens.”
I stare at Regg, holding my breath, not sure what he’s going to say to this whole crazy idea. I mean the idea is to avoid the zombies, not kidnap a frozen one and try to thaw it out in your living room.
“I think the idea has merit,” Regg says after a moment of careful consideration. “We will have to be careful, and take precautions, but I would also like to know what’s going to happen.” He looks to me and gives me a nod of approval. “Good thinking kid—if the zombie stays dead, it’s a moot point—but if it comes back, then we will talk about your idea.”
Chapter Ten
I can honestly say that I have never been so happy to see a zombie in my entire life as I am to see the frozen monstrosity Silas and Ryan pull from the box of the pickup truck.
“You couldn’t have picked something a little prettier?” Abby complains as she eyes the one-legged zombie with a frown of disgust.
I have personally never used the word ‘pretty’ to describe a zombie, but I do see her point. His leg isn’t the only thing missing. His skull looks like someone tried, unsuccessfully, to kick it in for him. As a result, his head is all misshapen skin and he’s missing not one, but two eyeballs. I have to fight back the urge to gag as I look at the stringy cords hanging out of his empty sockets.