And then he says it, the trump card, the check mate, the one thing that will shatter me into pieces, and I don’t care how he knows who I am, how he realizes that this is the one chink in the armor that has solidified around me since Malia and Mason, and before that, since Mom and Jonathan. I don’t care that his words are the last words of a dying man who wants to leave the world with his dignity intact.
I don’t care that they shouldn’t bother me, because after he says them I am already running, as fast as I can, down the road that stretched behind me, the broken down bungalows of houses, veering and careening, reading the signs that point me to where everything will come apart and together, where it all began. Death coming for me over and over.
“Ben says hi,” he whispers, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth. “The local cemetery is a great space to dump them when they get annoying. And then they’re just a free buffet.”
I can still hear him laughing, even when I’m far away, feet pounding across the pavement, my breath and the adrenaline keeping me awake, awake, awake.
Gideon
I don’t know what makes me go after her.
When she whirls on the men, shooting them with the inerrancy of a Wild West dueler, the accuracy that leaves me speechless, I don’t move.
When she stops and bends next to the ear of the creep in red, whom she seems to have wanted to die a particularly agonizing death, I think about how long it will take to politely extricate myself from the situation so that I can get my miraculously working car onto the road.
I found the keys in the glove compartment, and a full tank of gas. I’m guessing that someone had it stashed here as a quick getaway car. I’m not about to wait for that person to come after me.
I’ve found clothes to change into, and I think I got most of the blood off. Things are finally looking less terrible. Like maybe I can survive this. Maybe this grief isn’t something I can’t recover from.
But then I see her bend down next to the man who’s dying, the one whose shoulders are shaking with laughter even as he bleeds out on the ground, and the way her hair falls around her, catching the light and turning golden, wakes me up.
She looks at me, but not at me. She’s seeing something far away, something so terrifying and awful that it’s going to swallow her up. It’s going to eat her alive.
And some part of me, the part that hears my mom scream, “Your fault,” every time I’m alone, the part that believed Laos when he told me I should have killed the other little girl, the part that still weighs me down into bogs of guilt every time I think of Monroe, responds to that look in her eyes.
And I don’t know if it’s that she’s pretty underneath the dirt, or the guarded vulnerability she showed in every movement when she met me, like she knew she needed to interact with me but was afraid it would get too far, or the way she looks like she’s on the verge of jumping off a giant cliff with rocks at the bottom.
But I’m running after her before I can think straight, before I can process the car I’m leaving behind or the man and girl who stare after her but don’t follow, or the fact that I’m leaving my one reliable source of transportation to chase a girl who is going somewhere I should not want to follow.
But I do. I think I’d want to follow her anywhere.
I pour on speed, so that I’m pacing next to her.
“Hey, kid.” A voice calls, and I stumble, as she jets on ahead.
“What?” It’s the guy and girl who were at the convenience stores. The guy’s bald, in his twenties. The girl can’t be more than twelve.
“If you can get her to come with you, it’s up Highway Seven. On the left, big gate with a longhorn on top of it. Can’t miss it.”
“Thanks,” I gasp.
“Bring her back to us,” the girl says, and something in it sounds a lot older than she should be. “She needs us, more than she thinks.”
“Will do,” I mock salute, and the guy rolls his eyes. The car stops and reverses, motoring off in the opposite direction.
Meanwhile, she’s almost out of sight, she’s so far ahead.
She’s fast, faster than I’d expect for someone as short as she is. I’m not that tall, but she can’t be taller than five two. And she’s still running so fast that I’m huffing a little trying to keep up. Even after my military training, she’s practically flying compared to me.
Still, I manage to catch up to her until we’re matched, stride for stride.
At first, I think that she’s deliberately ignoring me, running on and on and hoping I’ll get tired or give up. But then minutes pass, and her gaze never once flickers in my direction. She still looks so far away, like her body is running, but her mind is already at the destination, facing down whatever demons the creep called up before he died.
Finally, I decide that this can’t go on. I’m exhausted, it’s almost dark, and with the way she can shoot, she might suspect I’m one of the creep’s cronies, or a zombie, and shoot me before I can explain.
Rationally, I should leave this possibly unstable, slightly insane girl to whatever grisly end she’s careening toward. I should cut my losses and head back to my car, because anyone with that expression on her face isn’t going into the kind of situation you can walk away from.
But I’m still running beside her when I put on a last burst of speed and cross in front of her, arresting her momentum so that she has to twirl like a dancer to avoid crashing into me. I’m surprised that she’s so agile, and I wonder if she did something besides run before this, if she danced or did martial arts, something to earn that quiet grace that makes even her avoidance of me a work of art.
Her hair is still swept behind her in a high ponytail, but strands escape everywhere, sticking up in tufts of curly frizz, arrows of imperfection pointing to the glossiness of the rest of her hair, which still flashes and catches the sun’s light.
But I’m not looking at her hair once her eyes meet mine. They’re no longer far away, no longer focused and determined like they were when she looked through me at the gas station.
Now there is bewilderment. And fear. And wonder. Now I am looking at her enough to know that she isn’t beautiful so much as wild, an animal something in her eyes and posture that marks her as different.
I want to know her so badly that it takes my breath away for a second. It takes everything away, and it is just me looking at her, trying to knock the feeling that this girl, above every other girl I’ve ever met, above even Monroe, who I whispered my love and secrets to in bloodstains and cheap yellow light, is someone who will walk across the pages of my life forever.
She shoves my arm, and it takes me a moment to realize that she is angry. And a little afraid. She’s waking up after whatever trance the run had her in, and I’ve caught her by surprise.
“What the Hell are you doing?” she snaps. “If you don’t get away from me right now, I’ll gut you with this knife, I swear to God,” she reaches a hand back to her belt and withdraws a long, wicked-looking blade, almost big enough to be a machete.
Even though she’s small, she looks dangerous. Solid. Her arms are corded with muscle, tense as bowstrings. And she holds the knife like she isn’t afraid of it.
“Whoa,” I say, taking a step back far enough to stay in front of her. “Just wanted to see if you needed any help with— “I gesture at the road in front of us for emphasis, asking implicitly for an explanation.
“Really?” she cocks her head to the side. A hint of bravado colors the act, like she realizes the way I’m watching her. “You just followed me from the gas station to see if I was gonna be okay?
“I— “I start, and something comes and cuts off the oxygen, so that I’m just sitting there like a dying fish for a few seconds, letting my mouth open and close.
Throughout the whole ordeal, she just stands where she is, staring. She even raises an eyebrow, as if to say, Seriously? What the Hell? What a fucking joke.
Finally, I manage to say, “I saw that guy back there, and I was wonder
ing if you wanted any help— “
I try to say something about the way she looked, what I felt when I looked at her, but I can’t. I can’t even explain it to myself.
But she’s already turning around, taking a little skip to start running again. My legs protesting every step, almost trembling, I chase after her.
Where she had her iron focus, the steel that bespoke a purpose that started and ended far away, at the end of whatever road we were treading, now she is utterly present. Present enough to look at me and say, with only a slight hint of being out of breath, “You think that I need any help? You think I’m going on some happy little mission against a couple zombies?”
“I don’t know what you’re doing,” I’m trying to sound nice, calm, collected, but it’s hard when I’m this out of breath. “I was trying to ask, except you keep taking off like a goddamn 747.”
She exhales a puff of air at this, and I wonder if it’s because I made her laugh, or she’s just really annoyed. “You know what the whole point of running this fast is? Making sure no one can catch you.”
I smile. “But it seems that I have caught you. So—”
“Look, don’t you have anyone else to go try to play hero for? I’m fine, clearly.” She stops again, putting her hands on her hips. “Leave me alone.” She glares at me, her eyes narrowing when they meet mine, and we stand like that for way too long. Longer than she should be staring, for someone who wants me to leave. Long enough that her mouth is softening, turning from a grim line of callous anger into a soft bow.
The way I felt when she took off comes back in full force. She’s vulnerable and grief-stricken, and maybe I see something in her eyes that is more like a mirror than a window into her soul.
So I stare her down and grin like she’s just told me a secret. “I’m coming with you,” I say.
Rose
I need to be running, getting to him as fast as possible, and this stupid boy is staring at me the way I thought no one would ever, should ever look at me again, and my mouth is moving faster than my mind as it whirs, trying to process why he chased me down, why he won’t leave, won’t stop and leave me alone, leave me running toward the end of everything, what is probably the end of me. What does he care?
So somehow, even though my mind screams, get away, I’m stopping and listening to him try to flirt his way into going with me, on a suicide mission, like I’m some kind of helpless girl he needs to save.
I should just hit him over my head with my gun and leave him in the street.
I hear myself say, “You don’t even know where I’m going,” which is way less along the lines of ‘fuck-off’ than I wanted, and now he’s grinning at me like I just offered him a challenge, and I don’t know what to do.
If I hit him over the head and leave him here, he might get eaten by the zombies, or the Jackals might come and decide to have fun with him.
They’ll be here soon; someone was missing Jake, someone’s gonna go out and investigate when he doesn’t come back, and then they’ll be out for revenge. The Jackals don’t take the loss of one of their own lightly.
I have to go. I have to go right now, because Ben is at the cemetery and I can feel him getting buried like it’s happening to me, the dirt coming down and choking him, and I know that it might be too late but I have to go, I have to go anyway, if only to crawl down into that hole and die beside him.
“Explain it to me.” He spreads his arms wide, as though we’re in a performance hall and he’s waiting for my lecture. “We’ve got time.”
“I have to go,” I start walking away.
“Come on,” he grabs my arm.
Mistake. I whirl, and before he even knows what’s happening, he’s on the ground, his offending arm twisted behind his back in a position I know from experience to be excruciatingly painful.
“Don’t. Touch. Me,” I hiss, willing my voice not to break. Normally, I would just dislocate his shoulder, leave him lying on the road, but my mind keeps moving me through space and time, to Ben and back, and I don’t even know how many more miles I have to go.
The way he looked at me, even as I barked at him to leave me alone. Before that, when I faced him and tried to take his car, and then instead of leaving, he left the car and chased after me.
I don’t know why, but something is telling me to stay. It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, and Perce is blaring in my mind like an alarm bell, warning me of what happens when you decide something is significant, decide to let in the person who chases you, and I don’t want to watch something build from the ground up and crumble into dust in an instant, I don’t want to become the girl he saves.
I just want to save Ben.
But I’m running out of time.
So I do what my mom always told me to do, when I was too angry to see straight and my goal stood immovable in front of me like a statue, but the path to it was blocked by someone else, standing obstinate and obnoxious in front of me.
I compromise.
“You can’t come—it’s too dangerous.” I let go, and he stands, rubbing his shoulder and groaning
“Look. I’m going into that cemetery, and I might not come back, and I’m faster than you, obviously, since you’re wheezing like an asthmatic twelve year-old.” I’m bluffing; he’s definitely fast enough to keep up with me, but maybe he thinks my sprinting speed is my jogging speed. “So either you find a place to hole up and wait for me, or I’m going to leave you in the dust by yourself, and you’ll have to deal with the army of undead I’m going to be leading back here on your own. “
His smile falls, and he’s just looking at me again. The kind of staring that holds something behind it, like he’s trying to tell me something, but it’s something that can’t be communicated in words.
I have to go; my nerves are practically vibrating with urgency, but he catches my darting eyes and holds them, and for a moment I’m drowning, and I’m telling him something I don’t even think I could say out loud if I knew how to put it into words, something desperate and full of regret and longing, and I think I see something wake up in him, something that’s saying all those things back, and me too and I know and okay.
Then he blinks, and the confident grin is back in place. He points over my shoulder and says, “Like, say, a farmhouse?”
I sigh, and his grin breaks into a full-fledged smile, flashing impossibly white teeth. “I’m— “
“I don’t want to know,” I say.
He frowns. “Fine. Then I don’t want to know your name, either. But, whatever your name is, if you’re not back at dawn, I’m going into that cemetery, and I’m going to kick the asses of every zombie I see until I find your ass, and then I’m dragging your ass out of there. You have a great ass, by the way.” He says all this so fast, without a trace of embarrassment.
I can’t help my smile. His eyes light up, and I know I’ve made a mistake.
I turn and run like the zombies are already chasing me.
Call Me Zombie
Rose
I pull over because my hands are starting to not feel the wheel. They’re sticky with red and gray, and I need to wipe them off, but I’ve been too afraid to get my eyes off the road, to move my hand away from the wheel or gearshift, or even to look in the rearview mirror.
He’s still smiling at me. I think. It’s hard to tell—there’s a blackness creeping in on the edges of my vision, and I am glad that he decided to take over, because I must be really exhausted. I’m too tired to even thank him, too spent to even look around to see if anyone’s following us.
Dimly, sitting in the passenger seat, I am aware of what exactly is on my hands, and who it belonged to, but my throat does not tighten in disgust and revulsion, nothing happens, nothing makes me do anything but stare out at the road. It’s like I’m in a glass case, and everything else is just happening outside of it. When I touch the car window, I’m surprised at the marks my fingers leave on the glass. I don’t feel real.
I don’t think of anything f
or a while.
The road that flows by reaches for me, daring me to step out of the car and launch myself along it, and the grayness of the asphalt burns my eyes, blurs, shifts into something else, into the boy next to me, who becomes Perce, who becomes Ben, whose brains are still splattered all over my hands, and I’m so hungry.
I’m so hungry I can’t see, I can’t think, the boy is saying something and I think I’m supposed to smile, so I try, but nothing happens, nothing happens and I want to bite him for some reason.
My mind flashes back to the salt tang of blood, the swipe of a thumb across my mouth, the realization that he was a boy and I was a girl and that was all that mattered to me in that moment, or maybe it was more, maybe it was the way his eyes held something that called me to him.
I blink, and the sun is beating down on us, and he’s pulling into a gravel driveway that stretches far back, and I don’t know where we are, I don’t know how we got here. He’s talking but the words reach me as though he’s saying them underwater; everything around me fragments, and through it all is an aching, desperate hunger, and the slime on my hands feels more and more like silk.
Gideon
She won’t talk to me.
I’ve tried to talk to her a dozen times, but as soon as I look at her, I feel something catch in my throat. She looks straight ahead at the road, unflinching, like she is carved from stone. She doesn’t react when I try to turn on the radio and get a blast of static, and when a bird almost flies into our windshield, she calmly swerves the truck out of the way.
I feel like she’s getting farther and farther away from me.
Call Me Zombie: Volume I: Rose Page 21