by Various
The last thing Brigid wanted to do was touch the good china with her shaking hands. No, that wasn’t the last thing she wanted to do. The last thing she wanted to do was sit in her room, alone, and wait for Ian’s ghost to find her. She didn’t think they should be trying to help him anymore. She wondered if she and Sinead were actually keeping him here.
The dishes in the china closet trembled when she approached it, and Brigid caught sight of herself in its mirrored back wall. Between the mirrored backs of the dishes, her reflection had all its hair. Brigid searched the corners of the mirror for Ian, but he was nowhere to be seen.
After Brigid finished setting the table, her mother discovered her newly short chunk of hair and yelled at her for ruining her haircut. Brigid didn’t rat Sinead out this time, not because she was cowed by the stupid gum prank, but because she was afraid Sinead’s revenge would provoke more terrifying Ian episodes.
Sinead was hiding in the basement out of an attempt to put off her interview with her father, but she also had important work to attend to. Sinead had decided after the events of the previous night that Ian was lost, and being lost made him angry, so he needed to be guided to heaven, or wherever he was supposed to go—Sinead was pretty sure heaven was a part of the whole God-lie. Sinead had not made the prank connection, since she didn’t know about all of Brigid’s pranks; in fact, she was convinced that Ian was seeking them out, unable to let go. She had spent the afternoon acquiring the necessary tools: salt, an important memento, a tiny bell. The next time she saw him, she intended to send him off to eternal peace, whether she believed in it or not.
Sinead refused to come up from the basement to cut the potatoes, or polish the silver, or put out the glasses. She didn’t even respond to their mother’s calls for assistance, which made her sound if she was shouting down the stairs at no one. By the time Daddy came home, their mother was crackling with irritation, and it fell to Brigid to make the appeasing niceties required whenever her father joined the family for dinner. When he asked her how she had spent her day, she told him she had watched cartoons.
The rest of the family was already seated by the time Sinead emerged, the little bell tinkling in the pocket of her hoodie. Her parents’ half-empty bottle of wine sat on the kitchen counter and reminded Sinead that she wanted juice. She dug into the refrigerator for her orange-mango concoction, which she had secretly started to get sick of. But it inexplicably annoyed her father, so it would serve well as a final act of defiance before her punishment.
When Daddy came home for dinner, the family always ate in the dining room, with the gold-edged china and the freshly polished silver. The candles were always lit, and the girls’ mother made food that was cooked in the oven, not the microwave. Tonight there were small, bloody steaks freshly seared in the broiler, roasted fingerling potatoes, and garlicky greens. Each of the women handed a plate to Daddy, and he dropped on greens and potatoes and a single, wobbly steak. Brigid got half a filet, both because she was the youngest and because she was considered by the whole family to be fat. Then Daddy served himself a filet and Brigid’s leftover half, and the women listened to him talk about his day, and everyone enjoyed a nice family meal.
When Sinead sat down at the table with the mango juice, Brigid banged her knife on the table to get her attention, but Sinead refused to look up from her plate. She took a bite of her potatoes, then took a sip of her juice. She didn’t even register the taste; all she knew was that it had to be out of her mouth, now. Sinead spat orange liquid all over the white tablecloth, splattering the green beans and extinguishing one of the candles. The silence afterward was so complete that when Brigid took a breath, it sounded like the rush of the ocean.
“What,” their mother began with a sharp, clipped tone, “was that.” She clearly hoped to derail their father by taking on the scolding herself, but he spoke over her before she could get out her next word.
“Is there something wrong with your drink, Sinead?” he said. He said it so gently that all three women at the table tensed.
Sinead said nothing as she stared at Brigid, who looked at her with wide, helpless eyes. Brigid had never felt regret like this before, not even when she told Ian that he was dead. That had been an accident. This was something she had done on purpose, and it had worked exactly as she had planned. As terrifying as Ian’s reaction had been, he had stayed trapped in the mirror. Sinead and her father were here in the room.
Sinead kept staring at Brigid as she said, “Just went down the wrong tube.”
Their father considered this answer, folding his hands like the girls imagined he did in complex negotiations. “Take another sip,” he said—then added, as if it had just occurred to him, “so we know you’re all right.”
As she brought the glass to her lips, Sinead thought of the people who ate bugs on television. The horrid hot-salty flavor of the juice burned her throat, and her stomach turned and gurgled when it hit bottom. She put down the juice in a way she hoped was ladylike, then covered her mouth for one tiny cough.
Sinead could not tell if her performance had any effect, because now their father was looking between them, as if trying to spot an invisible thread. “Brigid, why don’t you take a sip?” he said.
Brigid should just take it. Just take the glass, choke the whole thing down, and spare Sinead. But she would spew juice everywhere or, worse, throw it up. “I hate that weird mango stuff,” she said. She pathetically hoped this would win his sympathy, since he, too, hated the weird mango stuff.
“Give it another try,” their father said. “Go get the bottle.”
Brigid rose from her seat as slowly as she possibly could, and shuffled into the kitchen. She pulled out the orange-mango juice and a glass and shuffled back into the dining room like a prisoner headed to the gallows. The three members of her family stared at her with anger as she approached, though their anger was confused, and directed at different people. Her sister was angry with Brigid for pranking her and furious with their father for toying with them. Her mother was angry with the girls for provoking her husband, though her constant, simmering anger at their father boiled up from beneath the other, safer emotion. And her father—her father was angry at his children, and at his wife, but his ideas of who they were and what they represented were so distorted that the anger might as well have been at different people entirely. He’d been furious at Ian when he got sick again. Brigid had seen him slap him. Their father’s anger made no sense.
All these competing angers made Brigid angry, too. Hers was not mixed with denial, however, or directed at someone who didn’t exist. She was angry at everyone, and she was going to make this stop. When she crossed the threshold, she slid her foot underneath the rug and elaborately, comically, tripped. The glass went flying out of her hands, and the juice bottle crashed to the floor. Their parents stared at Brigid, frozen, but Sinead leapt to her aid, making sure to knock over her juice glass in the process. Sinead slid her hands beneath her sister’s arms and drew her to her feet.
Then their parents started screaming about the rug and broken glass and carelessness and disrespect. Sinead and Brigid couldn’t make the words out, exactly. They were too distracted by Ian’s reappearance. Sinead saw him standing next to their father, arms crossed. Brigid saw him staring out from the china-cabinet mirror, hovering.
“—disrespect that should have died with your son!” their father shouted, just at the moment when their mother fell silent. Then everything was silent, taut with the ugly truth that had just been unleashed. Ian was dead. And each member of the family had wished for that death in the hope that life would be better without him.
The first dish in the cabinet broke like a gunshot. The one closest to it went off next, then another, and another, the dishes exploding like targets in a carnival game. Sinead saw Ian pick them up and hurl them. Brigid saw his face in the mirror behind each dish. Their parents were screaming again, and the sisters watched the carnage unfold before them like spectators, rather than two people in
timately involved in the situation. Then Sinead remembered the bell in her pocket, and Brigid remembered the look on Ian’s face when she told him he was dead, and they both began to shout, too.
“You can leave!” Sinead shouted. She rang her little bell at the dish cabinet, then pulled out her salt and shook it around the floor. “You don’t have to stay here! You can leave!”
“Ian, I’m sorry!” Brigid said. “I’m sorry you died! I’m sorry!”
The dishes kept exploding, and every member of the family kept shouting, and the sisters weren’t sure if they had unleashed something cathartic or something terrible. Sinead believed Ian just needed to release this anger to move on. Brigid wondered if their family had poisoned him with their selfishness, and now they were paying the price. Either way, all they could do was cower under the table, holding hands, until it had run its course.
The End
Copyright (C) 2011 by Meghan McCarron
Art copyright (C) 2011 by C. S. Neal
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There was less blood than he expected, and the sound they made when they popped out was almost like boots breaking through crusty snow. And just yesterday, a zombie-proof life had seemed so simple.
* * *
Not long before that, Ronald had been sitting on the toilet seat and listening to the zombies paw at the locked door.
These zombies understood the mechanics of doorknobs, but weren’t quite smart enough to use tools to batter down doors. More Russo zombies than Romero or Brooks. But not textbook Russos: They grunted and snarled, but none of them spoke.
At least they weren’t fast.
* * *
At home in his attic, Ronald had crates of rations and water, a shotgun, six rifles, boxes of ammo, fuel, even a cylinder of liquid nitrogen. The steps to the attic could be pulled up in seconds, keeping anyone hiding there safe from all zombies but those capable of using fire or ladders. Ronald doubted if fifteen other people on the planet were so prepared.
At his workplace, Leon’s Lenses, he had cut a hole in the drywall of the upstairs storage room and crammed in a katana and three weeks’ worth of dried food and bottled water. It did him no good anymore, but he hoped that if any of his coworkers were trapped in the building, one of them would stumble upon it. He wasn’t close to any of them, but there was no sense in all those supplies going to waste.
Ronald wasn’t the type to be caught blind by zombies–in fact, he was only in this mess because of a SNAFU with his registration at the BMV. The BMV prohibited concealed weapons, even permited ones, so Ronald was even more vulnerable here than when he showered. The car was hardly worth the hassle, even in normal circumstances. He had three durable bikes at home—what did he need with a vehicle that required fuel? But one of his buddies on the zombie message board had said it was a vital part of the toolkit in case you needed to leave the area entirely, so he’d grudgingly plunked down for a used car.
“Too bad,” the withered red-haired woman behind the counter told him, as she looked at his papers. “You could have just mailed this in if you had form 89B-4.”
Before Ronald could answer, the screaming began. The BMV’s windows only provided an oblique view of the outside, but he could see that the parking lot of the strip mall was suddenly dotted by bloody struggles as the broken forms of the undead lurched towards them in a mob thousands strong.
“What the holy hell?” sputtered an octogenarian, holding fast to his place in line. These poor fools had wasted years of zombie preparation time--they never believed it was coming.
Ronald quickly ticked through the options. This couldn’t be a natural zombie apocalypse caused by disease, aliens, or government--there would’ve been warning signs, heralds of doom. This must be Zombie Apocalypse Scenario VII: Sorcery or Demonic Influence.
But there was no time to waste considering causes. Instead, he ran to the back of the BMV’s lobby as the first of the zombies crashed through the glass door. He rushed through a door marked “Employees Only,” the clerks and a few patrons right behind him. He was hoping for a rear door, but saw nothing but a pair of restrooms and an open area with a couch.
It was odd, Ronald thought later, that we segregated so naturally. All the women in their bathroom, and me alone in mine.
* * *
But those were the good times, before the bite, back when he still had a chance. Now, his body going numb and a sick hunger growing in his belly, he was fumbling with a tool kit. He could feel vigor mortis setting in. He would have to hurry, but he was cool under pressure.
* * *
Approximately one hour and fifty-seven minutes after first sighting, he heard the first scream from the women’s restroom. He could guess the reason: ZA Threat #3: An Infected Hides Among Survivors. One of them must have been bitten or scratched, but hid with the others in the bathroom anyway. The women had been too trusting. Far too few people knew the necessity of mandatory strip searches. Ronald used to chide such characters at the movies, but listening to the women’s anguish actually made him sad.
Poor naïve fools.
One of the women apparently survived the initial attack and yanked the door open, but this just caused the zombies outside to start shuffling towards her. Her screaming was steady, hit an extreme high, and then went quiet.
Didn’t get far, Ronald thought. Must be a lot of them.
Ronald had a global satellite phone with a high-speed internet connection and detailed maps, a wonderful survival tool. It was under the seat of his car. He couldn’t call for help and had no idea what was going on outside his immediate vicinity.
I have been uncharacteristically sloppy, Ronald chided himself. Just when it mattered most.
He at least had the sense to fill the sink with water, and was filling the wastepaper basket as well when the lights flickered and went out.
Most definitely Scenario VII. The strip mall was positioned in the power grid such that a single downed wire wasn’t likely to cause a blackout. No, the power here wouldn’t go out so quickly…unless the zombies were deliberately targeting power sources or generating technology dampening fields.
It occurred to him that he had spent far too much time concentrating on biological zombies.
It was his frustration that made him risk opening the door. It was so dark inside the bathroom that even the BMV offices seemed bright, since the sun was still shining through the shattered front windows. The shadows fluttered, and at least three zombies turned to look at him. Ronald took stock of the layout and slammed the door. Back in pitch darkness, he heard dead fingers scratching outside, but he was actually relieved. He’d trained for this scenario thousands of times.
On the opposite side of the bathroom, he leaned hard against the wall. Finding two studs, he crushed into the drywall between them as quietly as possible with the steel tip of his shoe. The zombies outside the door didn’t move, implying low-grade senses, intelligence, or motivation.
He had hoped that the other side of the bathroom wall would give him a clear line to the outside, but instead it opened into a storage room, full of boxes and papers. Enough light streamed under the door that he could see that the area was clear. He slid across the small room and listened at the door. Nothing, but these zombies weren’t exactly chatty.
He cracked open the door and peeked into the BMV’s back offices. No zombies were visible, and the route to the exit, just around the corner, looked clear.
He took a few quick
steps. Battle plan: Formulate tactics based on the threats around him. Make it home. Reach the attic. Fat city.
The lights flashed on.
Ronald lurched and sprinted back to the storage room. Computers were rebooting. Somewhere a radio crackled.
No! Why would the power come back on? Did the zombies have anything to do with it after all?
Rule one: Focus. Don’t worry about the power supply while surrounded by zombies.
A rotten hand snaked out from behind a desk and grabbed his sleeve.
Ronald always went over his clothes with razor blades before wearing them, carefully sawing away at the seams so they would rip if pulled. His sleeve tore off, and the zombie stuffed the cloth in its mouth before realizing its mistake. But others were popping up, blocking the path to the door. He’d never get to the exit now, but he might make it back to the bathroom.
A huge zombie, the remnant of a man too obese to walk while alive, shuffled towards him, the first of a pack. Ronald vaulted over a desk, scattering registration forms and pens, dodged the fat zombie, and ran towards the bathroom.
He’d practiced just this maneuver hundreds of times at home.
Almost there, almost there. The bathroom was a zig and a zag away. A legless zombie dragged itself from under an overturned chair, and three more lurched around the corner.
Ronald cut to his left, evading the crawler, grabbed the chair, and pushed it into the three walkers. Before they could recover, he dropped and lunged. He would have been home free, had the obese zombie not grabbed his bare arm.
Faster than they should be. Most definitely supernatural.
He spun away from the heavy zombie, dodged the other three, turned the corner, and slid inside the bathroom, just beyond the zombies’ reach. He allowed himself a fraction of a second of satisfaction before realization sank in.
He was in the women’s room.
A zombie hit him from behind, scratching at his shirt and hair. He’d kept his hair trimmed short so there was nothing to grip, but the swipe set him off balance. He’d studied martial arts for years, but this zombie was faster than the ones he’d trained for. He elbowed her in the head, tore open the door, and barreled into the men’s room.