Ophelia Immune: A Novel

by Mattson, Beth

  The first time I climbed on top of it to reach for the landing, I wavered and then crashed onto my tailbone on the asphalt below. It tingled all the way up my vertebrae. I shook myself off and paid more attention to the space around me, somber but not sober. The wall spun away from me, so I avoided it and locked my eyes on the metal grate above me. I wrapped my sleeves around the mesh and pulled myself up, careful not to tip off of the ladders on my way up to the top floors.

  Many of the higher windows were not boarded, but just had thick curtains hiding their contents. Far enough from all of the barking dogs, I selected an apartment with deep yellow curtains and thrust my hand through the window. I moaned loudly. I heard the telltale rush of the wakened occupants hurrying to shut themselves inside of a safe, interior room. I smiled. Even when Drunk it was like taking fresh fruit from a baby.

  I crawled in and headed for the kitchen. I went right to the cabinet under the sink and peered in. Propane, charcoal, matches, gasoline. No batteries for Kite. I moaned.

  I lurched to the carved, wooden desk and opened the rolling secretary lid. I paused with a fistful of extension cords to knead out the throbbing tingles in my temples. My vision wove before my eyes as I reached for the batteries, all the faster to get home to bed with Kite.

  A floorboard creaked behind me. I turned and caught sight of a blur streaking towards my head, stumbled backwards and grabbing for my ax. I braced myself against the striped wallpaper and launched myself at the brave resident. He tumbled backwards with me, but rolled to his feet, holding a razored crutch high above his head, ready to strike.

  “Jim?”

  There was a long pause. He dropped his arms.

  “Ophelia?”

  I held my head and forced myself to stand. He remained silent.

  Embarrassed, horrified, nauseous, I dove for the window.

  “First you rob the Clinic, then you don’t return, then you attack an Auction, then you let some Friend rough me up, then you rob my house,” he ran fingers through his golden mane, “I thought you were better than this. You didn’t have break my windows to get batteries.”

  “No, to get anything from you, I would only have to give you my blood and let you lie to me.”

  I gurgled. He caught me as I wobbled, only touching my fabric.

  “Ophelia, have you been drinking?”

  “Yes,” I confessed, “And it wasn’t water.”

  “You’re dehydrated, thief.”

  He took me by my rumpled collar to a padded, shiny, vinyl chair in his kitchen. I embraced it, letting go only to accept the fresh water from the tap. I emptied the first small cup into my throat and held it up for more. He took a large, glass bowl out of the cupboard, filled it and handed it to me instead. Grateful, I slurped at it until I was full. My eyes cleared a bit. I still rubbed my temples.

  “So,” he rubbed his stubbly chin, “Have you been out attacking another Auction tonight?”

  “No, we don’t do that anymore. Now we are really more about Raising Awareness. It’s much cooler.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Awareness for the Rangers, eh? I’m not sure they need more publicity.”

  “Well. Maybe we could raise awareness that Doctors and Scientists and Ass-Istants lie to their test subjects. That they all work together to dump poisons everywhere. Why aren’t you busy being an Ass-Istant at the lab tonight? Did you get fired by a real Doctor?”

  “No, I did not get fired. We have different hours now that we have finished the Cure,” he folded his arms and stood up taller, “We weren’t all in favor of dumping fish poison into the water. Nobody listened to us. Like you’re not listening to me now. And Assistants are really important, so you should stop scoffing. I know a lot about your genes.”

  “Oh, these jeans,” I pointed at the filthy pair I was wearing, “They’re new.”

  “I mean it, drunk-y. Have you had time to check in with the rest of your Family and see if they are Infected or Immune?”

  “Family is Nothing,” I spat, liking how it sounded. Cool. Strong.

  “Oh, Ophelia,” he tilted his head slowly, looking disappointed. He glanced at a framed picture, in which he was small and sat on the lap of several similar-looking women. He held me in his gaze.

  “Jim,” I growled, “My Family would probably try to kill me. The Cure that you used my blood to make would kill me, too. How are you any different?”

  “It still might kill you,” he threw his hands abruptly to the ceiling, and then shook them at me, “Are you listening to me? The Cure is done. We are spraying it over the city in September, before the holiday – the day before Ranger’s Day – so that everybody can grill out the next day and celebrate. The spray will reach everywhere. Into closets. Through flimsy face masks. A matter of hours after it is released, it will kill every zombie in the area. If you aren’t careful, it is going to kill you and every Immune Infected that you don’t check in on.”

  I hummed in my mouth. Where was I going to hide Juliet? And Kite? What if Mom or Dad or Hector really was Infected and Immune, too? Or their new babies? What if they had new babies? New babies who wouldn’t ever learn to read, probably. I scoffed.

  “I can read now,” I told him, “And I know that you were mixing me up with French. Kite told me.”

  “You are impossible. Impossible! You were very jumpy; I didn’t want to scare you away. We were going slowly. Is Kite the one who was ready to pound me? Is that how you and your Friends look out for one another?”

  A floorboard in his hallway creaked. I moaned, confused. A young, busty figure stepped out of the shadows, wrapping a robe around herself.

  “Jim,” she cleared her throat from sleep, “Are you okay out here?”

  My jaw hit the floor. I stood up quickly, filling with a surprising rage, and knocked over my chair.

  “Jim! You didn’t?! How could you?! After everything, you bought a Wife?!?!” I roared, ready to take her in my arms, smell her sweet skin and whip him with the spare extension cords from his desk.

  “Of course not,” the young woman walked past me to the faucet and filled a teapot, “Nobody bought me. But after his old-fashioned Great Aunt passed away, there wasn’t really anyone to stop us from having sleepovers.”

  She kissed him on the cheek. He blushed, studied his smooth linoleum floor.

  I chewed my lip and sidled quickly to pick up my chair. I stood grasping my sweaty hands, recovering from the shock while he let her nuzzle his neck.

  “Jim,” I fiddled with my sweaty fingers, “I am sorry. So sorry about your Great Aunt. I didn’t know that she died.”

  He nodded.

  “Families can be difficult, Ophelia, but they’re not worthless. Who filled you with that nonsense? What has happened to you?”

  I handed them the batteries that I had stored in my pockets.

  “I am sorry that I broke your window. I didn’t know it was your apartment. Je suis désolé.”

  “Ne vous inquiétez pas pour elle,” the woman said kindly, retiring with her steaming cup of tea, leaving Jim to sort me out.

  I inched closer to the window to make my exit. Jim came with me, handing me the batteries.

  “I met Melanie after I last saw you,” he rubbed his eyes clear.

  “It's ok,” I said, “I found somebody that I could touch, too.”

  “Listen, I don’t work nights at the Clinic anymore. Please come visit me during the day to learn about the Cure before Ranger's Day. Or come back here. I can keep you Safe. Tell you about the real Science. Or help you to read in French. Friends can be Family, too, you know.”

  “Actually,” I let slip, “I am working on Spanish now.”

  I put my feet out on the fire escape, testing for solid ground. He leaned out into the night air with me.

  “Good for you. It’s a beautiful language. Come back if you need anything. But please, use the door. Or at least just knock on the window.”

  “Thank you. For the batteries. And things,” I stuttered as
I climbed down, “You’re doing really well with your crutch. If I wasn’t so good at fighting, you totally could have crushed my head.”

  “Maybe if you were more drunk. Goodnight, Ophelia.”

  He closed his curtains. I pictured him walking back to his bedroom and crawling under the blankets with Melanie. I longed to be under blankets so soft and fresh as even their golden curtains, or to be in bed with someone as soft and kind as Melanie.

  When I got home with my pockets full of batteries, Kite was unconscious, flat on her back, fully dressed. Juliet did not come running. She was wedged tightly behind a chair braced into a corner, her chin pointing one way, one of her feet the other. I let her out. She chased my heels to the open closet door and chased Kite’s clothes as I pulled them off of her and tossed them for Juliet to play with. I rolled Kite over onto her side and crawled in next to her, the water from Jim rocking my belly to sleep.

  The Sobering

  My guts stank the next day, worse than fermented cabbage hash, and my head buzzed full of flies in heat. I stumbled into the kitchen and reached for a water glass. Kite sat on the counter curling her hair with the handle of a pot.

  “These are new water glasses,” I noticed.

  She shrugged.

  “You didn’t rob an old lady on the way home last night, did you?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t remember. That was some goooood Liquor.”

  “Good? My guts stink like a highway Kill Ditch and Jim practically smashed my skull open for me.”

  “Jim?” she wrinkled her nose in distaste, “That Ass-Istant?”

  “Yeah, I accidentally robbed him. Again. He’s not so bad. He talked to me more about the Cure. He gave me the batteries.”

  “You are so stupid about him and that Cure. You have a thing for that guy or something? Gross. Anyway, thank you for robbing him and getting the batteries. The radio works great now. And those Flyers that you nailed to yourself were brilliant, and I think that wearing a symbol of solidarity was the best idea you’ve ever had. We should get some more orange fabric and tear it like this,” she held up a pile of orange t-shirt strips, “and run them through the printing press and hand them out.”

  “Did you tear my orange shirt? And don’t you think people already know that selling girls is a bad idea and they just have no choice? Don’t they really need a place to drop off Family that they can’t keep? And they could pick up free fish as food at the same time. We could build some schools and houses and Clinics!”

  I hit my fist on the table with enthusiasm, making my coffee jump. She hit her fist mockingly on the counter and smiled down at me.

  “Don’t be so naïve, Ophelia. That will never happen. All we have is knowledge better than theirs.”

  “I love knowledge!” I agreed, “Like the knowledge that they could be eating fish instead of selling their own daughters to buy food.”

  “If we said that, everything else we say would be ridiculed and we wouldn’t make any point at all.”

  “By who? Nobody is listening to us anyway! Maybe talking about fish would catch the ears of your precious radio hosts!”

  “Fine,” Kite snapped, “If you want to ruin our reputation before we even have one, why don’t you go down to the River and catch some of those fish? I dare you! In fact, if you can catch some fish, I will try your plan … But I am going to go do something useful while you fail.”

  She slammed the apartment door behind her.

  I had no idea how to catch a fish. I didn’t want to catch a fish. They were disgusting. I didn’t want to eat one. I didn’t want to see those disgusting monsters on an otherwise beautiful armband. But they were Safe. Maybe. And free. Other people should eat them. If the fish weren't sick. If I could prove Kite's story true and my idea cool.

  I very slowly tiptoed into Swan’s old room. Everything was dusty and exactly where she had left it. Her musty blankets were still dropped on the floor where she had stood up out of them. I felt bad raiding her bookshelf, but she would have liked teaching girls to feed themselves, and I knew which Book I wanted. She had an old hunting guide.

  There were pictures and words, but I hardly needed the pictures to decipher the instructions. The hook was easy to make, but the string was harder to find – a long, skinny piece with no snags. I had to make my pole out of a slender pipe instead of flexible wood and I would have to do without a reel.

  I got the shivers when I arrived at the grassy field by the open, forbidding beach and knelt uneasily at the water’s edge. I looked at the waving grass all around me, digging my fingers into the cold earth for worms. Except for the worms, the field was empty. The triangles of old swing sets sat perched, eroding on the edge of sandboxes long ago robbed of their sturdy plank borders. Squirrels gnawed on twigs, mercilessly shaking flowered branches to build ever larger nests. Crows squawked and ripped berries from thorny bushes.

  I dropped my fistful of soil and wriggling night crawlers. There were no Humans here, no children to pick the ripe Summer fruit. Only a zombie weaving unsteady footprints across the ball diamond. I went to it and held its hand. It was the first that I had seen in weeks. Where had they all gone? I had hardly killed a zombie all Summer. Maybe one or two while we were walking to do other things. Were the zombies failing like the fish had? There were few to be seen. Most must be locked in their relatives' closets or decaying past the point of ambling. Not many new Infections anymore. They had slowed. Their wave of assault slowing, disappearing. Soon Humans would be safe from more than just fish. Especially if we could shut down Auctions and Rangers.

  The zombie brought my hand to its mouth, but it had no teeth. Soft, ruined gums padded at my skin, not tearing a hole, not moving its Infection any further. I braced it softly against the green, pillowy ground and gave it a gentle splice through the forehead. It lay still. I closed its eyes and folded its arms. The grass was growing. The water lapped clear on the shore.

  The door to the Safe House was open and unblocked when I arrived. Girls lounged about in their pajamas, munching on toast and crackers. I looked at their heads. Many had cut their hair to mimic my short style. They beamed up at me under their chopped, uneven, halos of shorn fluff.

  “Auntie Ophelia, I drew you a picture! Of a hammer!”

  “’Phelia, I’shpilled peas.”

  “Opheeeeelia, Bernice took my shoe.”

  I folded the picture into my pocket, mopped at the green puddle with a rag, and sorted out the exchange of the shoe for a missing pillow. One little girl, with thin, straight, blond hair stood up on her chair, trying to hand me a picture of her and me with spiky hair.

  “You don’t look like her,” her roommate hissed to her and tried to push her off of the chair.

  “I do too,” the girl whispered vehemently and scooted her chair closer to me as I became swamped by a pool of girls collecting around my feet.

  “Ok!” I raised my voice, “We all look fantastic today, but where are Kite and Carlos?”

  The crowd pointed to the office, which was unlit and locked. It looked empty.

  “Alright, I’ll be back in five minutes, and we’re all going outside. Get your shoes on.”

  Their eyes turned to giant dinner plates. They didn’t move a muscle.

  “Come on! Don’t be chickens! Be strong girls! Let’s go.”

  The youngers ones dove for their boots and flip-flops first, squealing and shrieking with glee. Girls old enough to be wary of going outside cautiously advised those who were not dressed to head for the bathrooms and bathtubs, dripping and splashing on their way to the wardrobe. Some who hadn't chopped off their locks spent their time decorating themselves with plastic jewelry and fool’s gold, wrapping glimmering chains around their ponytails as they had seen Kite do.

  Out of the din, inside of the office, Kite and Carlos sat around the printing press, holding their heads with their elbows propped next to tall glasses, which I sniffed – golden Liquor, mixed with vegetable juice and black pepper.

  “You’r
e wasting tomatoes on Liquor? In the morning?” I asked, “Kite, your guts reek already. Carlos, the girls are all by themselves. The front door was wide open.”

  “They’ve got each other,” Carlos slurred.

  “That's not enough. Are you Drunk?”

  “Are you?” Kite leered, “I see you don't have any fish with you.”

  “No, I don't have any fish yet. I am taking the girls to the Park with me. It's better than them sitting inside all day with nobody Training them. With their guardians wasting away, Drunk. You go ahead and pretend that you are teenagers in a Highrise with brilliant ideas; I'm going to go do something for these girls.”

  Sylvia ran in through the open office door, her jet black curls tickling my nose as she leapt into my arms with her blankie, only one shoe on, telling me that she couldn't find the other. Her Father finally felt the empty spot between his arms, where she had not jumped. We all glanced at my arms to make sure there was no bare skin.

  “Fishing? With the girls? But there are zombies and … and … fish!” Carlos stuttered, “Maybe we should just focus on the flyers.”

  “The Flyers are cool. Really great, but there aren't many zombies anymore, not many new Infections. There are far worse things in this world than zombies, and I will teach them to be Safe, so that they can help themselves.”

  “They have been helped,” Carlos flushed “I've given them food and clothes and paper, what else could they possibly need?”

  “Family,” I said, “They need Family. And a life. Training. I am willing to provide the part that you can't. Maybe you should put some Science and Food options on the next batch of Flyers.”

  Sure that my parents would have been proud of me. It would be like a Party for Mom; I could teach just like Dad. I led Sylvia to the door with the other girls and laced up her second shoe. I pointed them through the reinforced exit, instructed Bernice to lead the way with her bow and arrow and let Cherry preside over the middle, lugging a tub full of kitchen knives and a long-handled cooking pan. With my fishing pole in hand, I marched them, two by two, to the Park.