Zombie Experiment

by A. Giacomi

  When I head downstairs I get to thinking about Eve. She promised me she would consider revealing herself to her father. I think that would be just what he needed. He was falling apart, but perhaps Eve could help him? It was worth a try.

  ***

  The next day I storm over to Alex’s house determined to convince Eve to come home. She needed to do this; her father deserved some closure, some honesty.

  I wear my face of determination as I knock on the door fully expecting Alex to answer, but instead, it is Eve, my face softens at the sight of her. The virus had been unkind to her, but her face was still hers, beauty still lingered there, even though her eyes were an odd shade of red, I sort of loved them anyway. As I stare from her eyes to her lips I forget words entirely. Eve eventually snaps her fingers in front of my face looking a little worried for my sanity.

  “Oh yes sorry, I spaced out for a second. Can I come in?”

  Eve nods and moves aside so I can enter. She makes her way over to the sofa and plops herself down. I was hoping for a hug or something, but it seemed that Eve’s mind was very preoccupied this morning. As I glance around the main floor, I notice Janna sitting in her kitchen’s breakfast nook and staring at Eve, her eyes don’t leave her once, not even when she greets me. I point from Janna to Eve and whisper, “So she knows everything then?”

  Eve tilts her hand back and forth to signify “sort of.”

  I join Eve on the sofa and continue our whispered conversation. “How did she take the news?” I ask.

  Eve smirks, “She thinks I’m a friggin’ superhero. She doesn’t quite understand that I’m dangerous. I wish she’d stop staring at me like that…”

  Janna looks over at us and sticks out her tongue. “I can still hear you, ya know? And I’ll stare wherever I want okay? It’s my house!”

  A voice comes booming down the stairs, “Oh Janna grow up! You’re nearly sixteen…who’s going to date a sixteen-year-old who whines like that?”

  Janna looks rather offended, but this jab does shut her up, which was a fairly difficult task if you knew Janna. She sure liked to brag and sulk and complain, a regular old teenager I suppose. It was Alex, Eve, and I that were the weird ones. We didn’t have much of a rebellious phase in our high school days. We just hung out with each other, talked about movies, books, even parties were a rarity. I guess the word you could have labeled us was “lame.”

  Alex turns her attention to me. “Hey Cam, what’s up? You need anything? How’s Mr. Brenner doing?”

  Eve shifts uncomfortably at the mention of her father. I knew she wouldn’t come around easily, but clearly, she wanted to see him too.

  “Actually, that’s why I’m here, Alex. I want Eve to come and see him.” I look over at Eve who’s shaking her head and hiding behind her long dark locks. “Eve please, he needs to see you, he’s a wreck, he’s lonely…and you don’t have much time anyway do you?”

  The silence between us hangs in the air awkwardly, painfully, and without remission. Alex and I knew that Eve had very little time left, Eve had told us all about Dr. August’s findings and the future was bleak. She was to become one of those things slowly, and then one day she would cease to be Eve altogether. She had already named me as the person to take her out of her misery when the time came. I wouldn’t know if it would be a difficult task until the time came. Putting a bullet into the brain of the woman you love? That was sure to leave some scarring behind that would never heal.

  When the silence becomes too uncomfortable, Alex walks off into the kitchen to brew us some coffee and Eve retreats back to the sofa, hiding beneath the decorative cushions. I peel away one of the cushions hiding her face. “Eve, please! Why don’t you want to see him? I know it will be hard, but it will be even harder for you if you watch him suffer from a distance. What could it hurt?”

  Eve cringes, “Cam, it’s a terrible idea. I’m in hiding; don’t you think CSIS is watching the place? Hoping that I will do just that? Pop in for a little visit…I’d have to be pretty stupid to do it, and be willing to put my father’s life at risk.”

  “Well, then that’s the solution, Eve! Let’s wait a few weeks, by then CSIS will have cooled its heels and perhaps stopped watching your house. We can make this happen I swear to you. Your father will be so overwhelmed with happiness. Doesn’t he deserve a little after all he’s been through?”

  Eve’s red eyes begin to water and before I can wipe away a tear she smashes another pillow into her face to catch the sobs. When she pulls the cushion away she is nodding. “Yes…yes, Cam, okay…two weeks…”

  I clap my hands in victory. Finally, something good could come from all the bad. A reunion that I would not want to miss for the world. I can picture Mr. Brenner embracing her and sobbing with joy, and that’s what made it all worth it. Life that is. We have to have love to survive. I glance back at Eve and realize that she’s staring at me intensely.

  “Oh god, are you hungry?” I sort of jerk back a bit from my extremely close seating position. I was practically hovering over her and that was much too close to be safe.

  She shakes her head. “No, I ate well last night…it’s just…nothing…nevermind.”

  She turns away from me and closes her eyes, something about her body language looked offended, but I hadn’t said anything hurtful, in fact, I thought we had been getting on quite well lately, so why the silent treatment now? I wondered.

  ***

  I am about to head back to Mr. Brenner’s house to check on him when Eve stops me. I had been at Alex’s house all afternoon and found it strange that Eve had been waiting until now to speak to me. She points to another room in the house and I follow her inside. She looks nervous and terrified, whatever it was, I simply had to know. I ask her to “spill” and she gets ready to spew whatever bad news she was about to give me.

  “Cam look…something’s been bothering me. I have to tell you and get it off my chest…so just let me say it okay? And don’t get mad and don’t think less of me. I’m sorry…”

  I cut her off there. I had a hunch about where this was going. “Eve there is nothing you need to explain to me, I’ve been hiding something too, and I think now would be a good time to tell you the truth. So here goes...” I take a deep breath before I blurt out the next few words. “I’m still in love with you.”

  She simply looks at me stunned; perhaps she was not expecting this from me, especially since I had been so angry about her leaving us without any notice. I continue in the hopes that Eve will find her words. “Eve, I’ve realized that I will always love you, and it doesn’t matter what you are, or how many awful things you do. I still love you. I just wanted you to know that.”

  I feel much better getting that off my chest, but Eve looks positively ill. I’m not sure if it was shock or something else; I decided to find out her true feelings by inching closer to her face. I stare into her eyes as she stares into mine. There is something there that had never been lost. I pull her close to me and plant my lips on hers. She accepts the kiss and pulls me in deeper. The kisses turn from sweet and tender to desperate and vicious. My body trembles as she undresses me and I her. We quickly connect and release many years of longing in about five minutes. I would have most likely gone again if Alex hadn’t stumbled in on us.

  She stares at us frozen in disbelief as we try to cover up. When she snaps out of it, she covers her eyes and repeats, “Sorry, sorry…I…sorry,” and then quickly leaves the room.

  I feel a mingled sense of guilt and satisfaction. Guilt, for rubbing this in Alex’s face even though she knew that I would never love her like I love Eve. I wished I could take back that brief moment in time when Alex and I were together, I had erased it from my mind, all except for the incredible guilt. I hadn’t even told Eve about us, I wasn’t sure if Alex had, but I suppose I better come clean at some point. If Eve and I were going to be together again, there would be no secrets.

&nb
sp; CHAPTER FOUR

  EVE

  My hands begin to tremble and I’m not sure if it’s nerves or another side effect of the Azrael Virus. I was to reveal myself to my father today and show him that I was still alive, well sort of. I was still unsure if I would completely come clean, perhaps there were things he was better off not knowing about me.

  Cam holds my hand as we wait for my dad to arrive at Alex’s house. We made sure that Janna and Mrs. Dashkov would be out for the day. I didn’t want to risk going over to see him since I was still worried that CSIS might still be watching it. It had been a couple of weeks since the funeral, but an alarm in my head kept sounding off, screaming, “danger, danger.” I tried to ignore it as much as I could. At some point, I had to move forward. I couldn’t stay in Alex’s house forever! I had to start figuring things out, whatever time I had left would be spent in the best ways I could think of. This was one of them. I craved this reunion with my father, but I worried that he would feel betrayed or worse have a heart attack. Cam kept assuring me that I was doing the right thing, and I really wanted to believe him.

  Alex had been a bit distant in the past few weeks. I wasn’t precisely sure why, but I think it had something to do with walking in on Cam and I doing “the deed.” I suspected that she now felt a little awkward around us and I was sorry for that. I didn’t want to create a divide between the three of us, but it seemed to be happening anyway. I felt guilty about that and guilty about the fact that I hadn’t told Cam about my relationship with Agent Williams, I kept putting it off because I knew it would hurt him. It hurt me too. Agent Williams had been a major faux pas on my part, I wished I could take it all back, but that’s the thing about your past, you may move on, but it always haunts you. I would have to tell Cam soon, our relationship was doing well, but I didn’t want to have the sort of relationship where we lied to each other, especially now that I had so little time left with him. I wanted a clean slate when I left this world.

  There is a knock at the door and I jump in my seat. I was not ready for this, and I’m certain there was no way to prepare for telling someone you were back from the dead. I suppose that only happened in Soap Operas.

  I let go of Cam’s hand and leave the room. I didn’t want my dad entering the house and me being the first thing he saw. Alex, Cam, and I had discussed easing him into this by having them explain what was happening before I even entered the room. I’m pretty sure he would think they were using drugs or something. There is no way my father would believe a word of it, how could he?

  I stay silent as I listen in from another room in the house. My father greets them as he enters and Cam asks if he would like a drink or anything, my father declines and asks to hear the news. There is excitement in my father’s voice; I think he’s expecting good news, well I suppose this was good news of some sort. His daughter was still here, not a charred body in a graveyard.

  Cam begins to speak. “Mr. Brenner, we have something we need to tell you. I would like to first start by saying that we’re very sorry that we’ve kept this enormous secret from you and when you find out what it is, I hope you will forgive us. We love you dearly and only wanted to protect you and your feelings, but we now feel it’s a better time to share this secret—”

  “Stop right there, Cam,” My father says. “There is no forgiveness needed. I’m very happy for both of you and I offer you my congratulations.”

  Silence fills the house; I try not to giggle as I imagine the shocked looks on Cam and Alex’s face. My father had clearly thought that this was a meeting to announce an engagement or perhaps even a baby. I cover my mouth as I continue to chuckle, I couldn’t wait to hear how they handled this.

  “Ummm Mr. Brenner…we’re not…ummm,” Alex says awkwardly.

  Cam cuts in and saves her the trouble of piecing together a sentence. “What Alex means is we’re not here to announce we’re getting hitched or anything like that, we’re not together, Mr. Brenner. We have something else to discuss something a little heavier than that I’m afraid. You might want to sit down for this.”

  My father does not say another word, I hear him pull up a chair, taking Cam’s advice to heart. I bite at my finger nails as I wait for the big revelation. As I chomp down, I realize that one of the nails comes off entirely. It peels away like a post it from its pad. I try frantically to stick it back on, but after a few tries realize that this was the reality of my situation, my existence, my human exterior was fading fast.

  Cam clears his throat. “Mr. Brenner I’m just going to say it fast because I don’t even know where to start…Eve isn’t dead. She’s been hiding.”

  I hear a chair grinding against the floor and then slapping to the ground. Someone was unhappy, very unhappy.

  “Did you call me all the way over here to play a prank? Some sick joke? My daughter is dead. I wish she wasn’t, but she is. The police records confirmed it, I saw the body myself. Why are you two doing this to me?” My father is screaming like a madman as he spouts the words hatefully.

  “Mr. Brenner, that wasn’t her body. I’m telling you the truth, we’re your friends; we thought you deserved the truth. They staged her death; they had to because something much worse happened to her.”

  Cam’s words don’t soothe my father. “Who’s they?” he asks sounding rattled and angrier by the moment. “Do you understand how nuts this all sounds?”

  I hear my father storming toward the front door. He was going to leave. I knew this was too much for him. I hear Alex calling after him, “Mr. Brenner, please wait, hear the whole story, don’t leave like this,” Alex continues to beg, but I can tell my father had had enough.

  The only thing left to do was appear. I gather my courage and race down the hall toward the entry way. I startle all three of them when I appear in the living room screaming, “Wait!”

  My father looks tired and older. Not at all as vibrant as he was when my mother was still around. His hair is fully gray now with a few streaks of brown hair scattered about. The wrinkles in his forehead deep and frown lines scarred his face and showed his years lived in constant heartbreak.

  “Eve?” he says softly as tears begin to flood his eyes.

  I nod and move closer.

  He examines me with disbelief.

  “Yeah, Dad it’s me. I have a lot to tell you and I’m so sorry to be doing this so late. I didn’t know about Mom until close to the end. I would have come sooner. I’m sorry…”

  The tears choke me as I mention my mother. I felt immense guilt about leaving them both behind the last few years, but I thought I was saving them, sparing them. It was clear that I had only inflicted more harm upon everyone I loved. My removal from the equation only left everyone hollow and deflated. I had no idea that I could do so much damage with a single poor decision.

  My father does not hesitate to grab and hold me. His fingers race around my back as he hugs me; he wanted to make sure I was real. “Eve, how is this all possible? What happened?” my father asks through rivers of tears. This would be a long story.

  ***

  After about five glasses of whiskey and the entire account about how I got “sick,” my father sheepishly asks me to show him my healing talents.

  He begins to apologize, stating that, “It was a dumb thing to ask.”

  But I assure him, “It’s fine, Dad.” I was all too familiar with this trick anyway. I grab my pocket knife and raise my leg on top of the coffee table in the living room, exposing my leg for trauma.

  “Are you ready?” I ask my father.

  He puts down his glass nodding and gives me his full attention. As I begin to slice I can see Alex cringing out of the corner of my eye, she had seen much worse, but I suppose not as of late. I gouge a bit too deep and some blood spatters across the table.

  “Oops sorry.” The wound only pours for a few seconds and then begins to seal, scab, and then completely heal.

&nb
sp; My father rubs my calf with disbelief, the wound is gone. “No wonder you’re on the run, honey. People always want to contain and control what they don’t understand…and I have certainly never seen anything like that before.”

  My father didn’t even know the half of it. I didn’t tell him all about the plan that CSIS had in place, I didn’t tell him that this zombie epidemic would soon get out of hand, I didn’t tell him that I had an expiration date. Some things are truly better left unsaid. How could I place more worry on this man’s shoulders? Hadn’t he suffered enough? He was glad to have his daughter back, even though she was a self-professed “zombie” and magical healer. He didn’t mind one bit, no judgment, no fear, simply love, and acceptance.

  Now that my story had been told, although edited slightly, there was the question of, “Well, what happens now?”

  My father begged me to stay with him promising that he would protect me and keep things quiet. Part of me worried that I was placing him in danger, but the other part realized that he would be safer with me close by. I was still fairly strong and would snap anyone in half who dared to mess with my family.

  After about five hours of discussion, we decided that I would stay in my father’s house, as would Cam, and Cam would have to accompany me during feedings to make sure things didn’t get out of hand. I agreed and told my father I would sneak over to his house when the neighborhood grew quieter and I had less of a chance of being spotted. It would feel much like house arrest once I got there. I couldn’t very well let the town know that Eve was back from the dead, imagine the papers, the gossip, and the chaos? So operation hibernation would commence shortly. I wondered how long it would be before boredom set in and I slipped up? That was the only problem with small towns; you couldn’t hide too much for too long.

  Cam leaves with my father, winking at me before he leaves. I suppose that was his way of saying, “good job”? I do feel better now that I have heaved that rather heavy rock off my chest. I didn’t know how people kept secrets, didn’t it eat them up inside, hollow them out, kill them in a sense? Allowing that secret to spill out of me gave me a feeling of rebirth. I felt hopeful for the first time in a long time. Perhaps I could live out the rest of my days quietly; happily, with the people I loved safely by my side.