Dead and Beloved

by McHenry, Jamie

  Chapter Twelve: Fear

  I lose track of the days though I estimate that it's been almost two weeks since my visit with Jessica. I see Dr. Snow a handful of times, but he doesn't address me directly anymore. The tests continue, including one where I'm injected with some sort of fluid that burns and turns my skin bright red. More blood samples are taken and I'm given another shot that sends tingles to my fingers. A half-hour later, my arm feels normal again.

  The day Mr. Jackson comes into my room, I'm expecting more bad news since he's come with Janice, the notary.

  “Are you ready to leave?” he asks plainly, as if I've been hanging out at a friend's house for a day.

  I stare at him, not sure if I'm dreaming, or if the injections are making me hallucinate.

  “Ryan, did you hear me?”

  “I'm trying to decide if you're real.”

  He holds out his hand. “Pinch me if you want. I'm real. And I'm taking you home.”

  The moment seems like a dream and everything happens so quickly. One moment I'm signing release papers, and in another a nurse brings me boxers, jeans, a shirt, and some flip flops. I change quickly, not caring about Janice or the nurse in the room, before following Mr. Jackson. We're led through the clinic, past iron doors that never opened for me before, and into tile hallways I've never seen. When we reach the front of the building I see the sky for the first time since my arrival. It's blue and fresh and welcoming.

  “How long have I been here?” I ask, squinting at the brightness.

  Mr. Jackson leads me down the sidewalk. “Almost a month,” he answers. “It's March twentieth. I'm sorry I didn't get you out sooner. Once the second video surfaced, it took two days to get emergency injunctions issued.”

  “Second video?” I follow Mr. Jackson to a silver Mercedes and climb in after he clicks open the locks.

  “Of the fight,” he answers as he enters the driver's seat.

  I study the interior. I haven't been in a normal car in two years. It feels so small and cramped, but it offers the most freedom I've known in a while. I'm staring at the building next to us—brick and inconspicuous with no windows—when Mr. Jackson taps me on the shoulder.

  “Hey,” he says. “You’ll need your seat belt.”

  I search beside me, trying to remember how seat belts work. I find what I need and, with some effort, click the belt into the lock at my side. The day still doesn't feel real and I keep expecting to open my eyes and see Dr. Snow staring down at me and telling me how much I need him.

  Mr. Jackson rumbles the car to start and then wheels us away. I grin at the speed, but it's also a shock to my system. My body tries to vomit.

  “I'm sorry,” he says. “Should I slow down?”

  I shake my head. “No. Go faster. I want to get as far away from that place as possible.”

  We careen in and out of light traffic and are soon on the freeway, driving faster than I've been in years.

  “You were telling me about a video,” I say, resuming the conversation we had started.

  “It took a subpoena to get it,” says Mr. Jackson. He smiles slyly. “It's the unedited version of your internet sensation.” He maneuvers the car and speeds up. “That I made sure found a place online.”

  “I don't understand,” I say. “How did a video—?”

  “The same way it almost sent you to prison,” he says, cutting me off. “You're not a criminal in the court, but in public opinion. Your only crime is to have been infected with something that's killed two hundred million people worldwide, and double that from violence.” He looks at me and smiles. “Once the world saw what actually happened that day in the hall, everyone's anger shifted.”

  “I didn't start the fight.”

  Mr. Jackson reaches behind my seat and pulls out a tablet and hands it to me. “I know. Take a look.”

  I activate the video and a memory starts to play on the screen. I see myself getting pushed and kicked. I hear the laughter and it's real again, taunting my recollection. I gasp at the speed I punch Tyson and flinch as the blows fly faster than I can remember.

  “I did that?” I ask.

  Suddenly the car is trapping me and I can't breathe.

  “Take in a big breath,” says Mr. Jackson. “You did. And that's all the world saw for a month. Laws were almost changed because of the last part of that video.”

  I put down the tablet and take a deep breath. This isn't what I wanted. It's not the life I had imagined when I tried so hard to return to high school.

  “I'm sorry,” I say. “I'm sorry for everything.”

  ~ O ~

  The hospital complex looks empty when we pull up to the entrance. I fumble with the digital controls on the car door before finally figuring out which one activates the lock and release.

  “It's Sunday morning,” says Mr. Jackson, again answering the question in my mind. “No one is up yet.”

  I stare at the mountains as I step out of the car. The sun has peaked, but it's barely over, making long shadows on the street behind us. Sunday had never looked so peaceful.

  “I had no idea what day it was in there,” I say. I shut the door. It slams, but the sound is muted and firm.

  “A lot has changed, Ryan,” says Mr. Jackson. “Your life is not going to be the same. People are angry, some are scared. Don't expect the staff here to smile and wave at your arrival. There will be protests.”

  “Like before?” I ask.

  Mr. Jackson shakes his head. “I think it will be worse. School will be different, too. When you go back, you'll have security. The district is requiring a pair of guards when you return.”

  High school. That's the last place I want to go at the moment. I'm glad to be out of that windowless torture chamber they called a clinic, but I don't know what to think. Jessica. What do I say to her now? When will I see her? Will I see her again? This morning has put me back into a life I thought had ended.

  “I don't want to return to school,” I say. I don't feel like going any place public. I don't feel like going anywhere. For the moment, I'd rather disappear from the world and try to figure out what my next step is. Without saying any more, I'm hoping Mr. Jackson understands. I'm hoping he'll tell me I can have what I want.

  But he doesn't. Mr. Jackson chuckles and pats me on the shoulder. I flinch, not because it hurts; it's an automatic reaction.

  “I'm assigned to you,” Mr. Jackson says. "And, for the most part, I'll do as you ask. But I know you, Ryan. I know what you've been trying to accomplish. Giving up now isn't in your best interest." He pats me on the shoulder again and leads me toward the hospital doors. “You’ll go back to school on Friday.”

  Unlike Mr. Jackson's warning to the contrary, my arrival back into the hospital feels routine and normal. It's almost as if I was never gone. We complete some forms at the front desk and I'm given a new access badge with my picture on it. The nurses don’t say much, then dismiss Mr. Jackson and lead me into the Scream Room for what I know is coming next.

  ~ O ~

  Back in room three forty one, everything feels different. It's been cleaned. Little tags mark what's been sterilized—which is everything. My punching bag is gone, making the room feel open and hollow—and distinctly different from my quarters at the lab. On my desk, everything has been straitened and rearranged. My packet from Stanford is still there. It's a reminder of the life I had built over the past couple years. It has been sifted through and examined; all the forms are out of order. Yeah, it's exactly like my life.

  I turn on my computer and log in to access my media page.

  This account has been disabled. Please contact an administrator.

  I groan and switch pages on the screen. When I try to check my e-mail, I receive a similar message.

  This account is no longer available. Please contact an administrator.

  “I'm trying to contact an administrator!” I yell. I slap the desk and the monitor screen flickers.

  Every site and service with my registered accounts is
no longer available to me. I can't send emails, and attempts to access the account recovery options fail. I stare at the screen and groan. I'm free from the tortures of the clinic, but I can't see anyone, can't talk to anyone. I think about searching the internet to see what the world has been saying about me, but decide better.

  When I first tried to go to high school, while the debates and laws and protests were hot and active, I used to look all the time. Most of what was said about me had been lies, and I learned quickly how angry it made me feel. The nurses had discouraged it, citing that emotion and stress weakened me and made the Virus stronger. Back then, I had used the only weapon at my disposal: Mr. Jackson. With his help I had managed to get a computer. I needed it for school, we had insisted, and with our success, the internet had become my window to the world. I had found Jessica there on a student chat site. Now that has been taken away. I remember the way Mr. Jackson slapped me on the shoulder and told me this was in my best interest. I flinch again from the memory of his touch. Is this in my best interest? Is Mr. Jackson on my side? I don't know anymore. I don't know anything.

  Still, life back at the hospital is better than being a test subject for Dr. Snow. Here, I can go almost anywhere. I wander the halls and make friends with a few of the new patients. They know me from the news, but we're all the same in this place. We all want to get better. There's no one my age here, though, and I don't mention Jessica or high school, or the cruelty of the clinic. They wouldn’t understand, and I don't trust anyone. Not anymore.

  ~ O ~

  I'm awakened Monday morning by the sunrise. I stare out my window and watch its rays peak over the mountains. A month without the sun and it feels warm on my face through the glass. I'm stretching closer to the pane when honking breaks the dawn.

  Down on the street, a man points up at me. He's shouting something, but it doesn't make sense. The horn sounds again, then another. More people gather around him and soon there's a crowd, staring and pointing at my window. I spend the morning staring back; there's nothing else to do. More horns. More people. And then the signs appear.

  I'm too far up to read what they say, but the warning from Mr. Jackson yesterday, and my own experience, tells me they aren't invitations to church. I'm an outcast in this world of the living. The fact that I dare go to their places, try to live, and invade the public sense of security is shocking and emotional for the rest of the world. Now that I've taken one of their own as my girlfriend and seriously injured a promising football star, I can only imagine how angry the words on the signs are.

  As the day drags on, I duck away from the window and close the blinds, though it doesn't block the sounds from the street. No one has told me about Tyson. I wouldn't have expected it, but I want to know what happened to him. Is he going to live? I know that he must hate me now—I would. I had never intended to hurt him. I think about the video of our fight. I was so violent, so fast. At that moment, I was exactly what people expected me to be. Maybe that's why they hate me so much.

  Yes, they hate me. Their shouted words filter into room three forty one, sending a clear message. I'm not wanted.

  All week, it's the same thing. I'm thankful for ear pods, because without them I wouldn't get any sleep. By Thursday night, cops, news crews, and satellite trucks accompany the crowd. Protesters have heckled the hospital nurses too; a SWAT truck arrives during every shift change and escorts the staff inside. Though the excitement is right outside the glass, everyone huddles around the television in the lounge, watching live video of the front of the building. That night I'm scrubbed extra hard and given special attention in the Scream Room.

  “If only the cameras could see this,” I joke, as I'm prepped for my coating of Second Skin. "I wonder what the TV ratings would do."

  The nurse looks up and gives me a smile, but it's a sad, flat response. Her eyes are red. Tonight I feel sorry for her. The nurses here have cared for me. Sure, it's their job, but this hospital is my home. These people face shouts and yells and curses in order to come and make a living. I'm protected inside. They aren’t. Even the scrubbing she gives me didn't feel as bad as before.

  “Thank you,” I tell her as she offers me a towel.

  She smiles again. “My son goes to Viewmont.”

  This surprises me and I lower the towel from my face. “Really?”

  She nods. “His name is Adam. He's a sophomore.”

  I've never talked to anyone at the hospital about school before. I dry my face and lean against the examination table. “Is he scared that I'm going back?” I ask.

  The nurse shakes her head. “He says it was never like the news told everyone. He says people were mean to you. He says—” She pauses and then takes a heavy breath.

  “What? What does he say?”

  She shakes her head, as if fighting the words she intends to tell me.

  “I let you scrub my flesh with a bristle brush,” I say. “And I did it with a smile this time. I think I can handle anything you tell me.”

  The nurse wipes her eyes. “He says most of the students want you back, but that the football team is telling everyone not to show up tomorrow. Students were threatened not to go to class.”

  “Because of me?”

  She nods.

  I'm angry now and it must show, because the nurse takes a step back. Tyson was a bully, he always had been. Even when we were friends growing up, he used to pick on anyone smaller—which was everyone. That day in the hall, he had pushed me to a limit and paid the price. Now his friends are punishing other students to keep me from coming back.

  “Is your son going to class tomorrow?” I ask.

  The nurse wipes her eyes. “Are you really okay, Ryan? Please don't get upset. Please, don't cause any more trouble.”

  I shake my head. “I never wanted to cause any in the first place,” I tell her. “I won't lie, though. I'm pissed.” I grip my fist and try to control the shaking in my arms. I can't. All week, I've been focused on the fact that I don't want to go back to school. I've been worried about myself—about my stupid hell of a life. But there are people who were nice to me at school. Not everyone treated me like a monster. Those people don't deserve the treatment from the football team.

  I look at the nurse. “Lori Turner,” I read from her badge. “I never asked your name before.”

  Her eyes widen. “What did they do to you, Ryan? What happened in that place?”

  Now I'm starting to cry. It's a moment I never expected. Not in the Scream Room, not with someone I had ignored for almost two years. I slide into a chair and wipe my eyes.

  “Life was bad for me,” I tell her. “I'll admit it. I hated living in this place. I wanted friends, I wanted my family. I wanted everything in my life that had been stolen from me.” I look at my arms; they've stopped shaking.

  Nurse Turner pulls a chair from the corner and sits in front of me.

  “That place was everything this isn't,” I tell her.

  “They hurt you there?”

  I nod and sit quietly while memories haunt me. “I know I'm going to die soon.” I rub my arm and point to my neck. “All of this.” I choke on my words. It takes a moment, but then I'm able to continue. “I'm not going to marry. I'll never have kids. Or a house. I'll never go shopping in a mall.”

  For some reason, this makes Nurse Turner laugh. When I look at her and question with my eyes, she speaks. “I once saw a movie once about zombies in the mall,” she says. “I'm sorry. An image popped into my head.”

  “Can you imagine me trying on clothes at American Eagle?” I ask. She laughs again and I laugh with her. I even hold out my arms mimicking the stiff lifeless creatures that Hollywood had always imagined zombies would be. They were so wrong.

  “The world thinks you're this monster,” she says. “But you're nothing like a monster. I wish they could all see you like this.”

  “That's why I'm going to high school,” I say. And I mean it. “I want people to see that I am a person. That I'm not some villain they saw on th
e news.” I pause. “Or a video. High school is a chance to share my soul with people.” I finish wiping my eyes. The talk has calmed me and I feel confident about returning to Viewmont. “I'll never see anyone from that school after I graduate. But somewhere, sometime, they're going to open their yearbooks and scan through the hundreds of tiny faces. They'll see my picture; they'll remember that I lived once, that I shared an existence in the same space—and maybe they’ll realize that all I wanted was a friend.”

  Nurse Turner is crying. I pull a tissue from the counter and then decide better. I hand her the entire box.

  “I don't want attention,” I tell her. “I never asked for cameras, or news crews, or protesters. When I look outside, I see that the world is dying, not me. They're the ones with hate in their hearts. I’m trying to live, that's all.”

  ~ O ~

  But there are cameras, and news crews, and protesters—more than I've seen before—as I'm escorted to the shuttle Friday morning. We pull out of the concourse and men and women are slapping the walls and yelling as we pass. The driver is swearing back at them to move out of the way. My two guards, Brooks and Keller, assigned by the hospital and the school district, give commands through small black radios.

  “See what you've done, kid,” screams the driver back at me. “We'll be lucky if we make it alive.”

  He's right. A speeding minivan crashes into one of the police cars leading the way. A million sparks fly into the air as metal scrapes against the pavement. The shuttle driver swerves, and we tip far onto one side while barely missing the tangled mass of destruction. The accident takes us off the planned road and we're forced to re-route through a different neighborhood. Keller yells into his radio, giving instructions to the rest of the police escort.

  When we arrive at Viewmont, cars are blocking the bus entrance. They’re all facing toward us, horns honking and lights flashing.