“Hey, sis,” I called.
She stuck her head around the doorframe and squinted down the darkened hallway at me.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Great,” she said to whoever was in the kitchen with her, and not in a nice way, either. “Kevin’s home.”
“Yeah, great to see you too, Gwench.”
I made my way there and nearly choked when I saw Jamie sitting at our table. She was shivering beneath a blanket, her hands around the glass Gwen had just filled. There were big, puffy bags beneath her eyes, and her face was bright red and swollen. She looked like death, and not even warmed over, either.
“Fuck me.”
“Gee, thanks, Kev.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say, which was just as well since my throat was threatening to close up. After a moment of utter panic, I managed to get a hold of myself.
“Well?” Gwen said. “What do you want?”
I ignored her and sat down opposite Jamie. “What the hell happened to you?”
Gwen placed a wet washcloth on the back of Jamie’s neck and answered for her. “Stupid is what happened. She didn’t put any sunscreen on yesterday and got baked.”
I winced, though at the same time it felt like a huge weight lifted from inside of me. Sunburn, that’s all it was. Sunburn and probably heat exhaustion. “You okay?”
“I’m f-f-fine.” I could see the muscles in her jaw tightening as she tried to stop her teeth from chattering. She didn’t look at me, so I couldn’t tell if she’d forgiven me for yesterday or was blaming me for what had happened. If I hadn’t argued with her, she probably wouldn’t have forgotten to use sun block, one of the most basic lifeguarding fundamentals.
As if reading my mind, Gwen said, “Yeah, no thanks to you.”
“What’d I do?”
“Besides be clueless?”
“Don’t you have a kitten to be abusing?”
“Don’t you have a chicken to be choking?” she spat back.
Jamie started laughing, but it soon devolved into a painful coughing and groaning fit.
“Funny, Gwen,” I said. “Now, can I talk to Jamie alone? It’s…private.”
Gwen hesitated.
“I’m fine,” Jamie said, waving her off. “It’s okay. Go. And thanks for looking after me.”
“Yeah, no problem.” Gwen gave me the evil sister glare. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”
“Thirty,” I said.
She scowled but left without another word. Somewhere, I heard the faint rumble of the air conditioner kicking off again, surprised by the sacrifice Gwen was making so that Jamie could be comfortable.
“She’s such a jerk,” I said, when I was sure Gwen was finally out of hearing range.
Jamie chuckled. “Yeah, that she can be sometimes.”
She tried to look at me, turning her head as little as possible. She was still shivering, but it was coming in waves now instead of all the time. And it didn’t seem as strong. The Tylenol was beginning to kick in. “She’s not the only one.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” I joked, as I reached up to feel her forehead.
But Jamie pulled away, holding up a hand to stop me.
“What?”
“No touching. Please. It’s just that my s-skin’s really sensitive right n-now.”
I tried to think of something to say that would somehow mend things between us, but all that came out was: “I should have just given you the Suppository.”
“Now there’s something you don’t hear every day. Especially from your closest friend.”
“Yeah, well, all joking aside, it was stupid of me to throw it into the pool.”
“Forget it.” Then her face twisted and she turned to me, her eyes suddenly questioning. “Why? Why are you sorry?”
I shook my head, not understanding what she was asking. “Because…” I looked down at my hands. “Because—”
“Kevin!” she exclaimed, clearly exasperated. “God, you are such a paranoid. I’m not infected. Okay?”
“You don’t know that!”
I felt my panic rising in my chest once more, sharper this time, more…focused. It felt a lot closer to the surface, ready to come out, wanting to be voiced. And suddenly everything seemed wrong. Why—if Jamie was just suffering from sunburn—why would she want the air conditioner off? It didn’t make sense. Unless…
Poikilothermia.
I’d learned it my Biology of the Undead class. It was what happened shortly after infection, when the disease reaches the hypothalamus and starts to eat it away, resulting in a condition where the body loses its ability to self-regulate its temperature. It’s one of the reasons why you see zombies sunbathing, to make up for the heat they lose during the night. That’s why they’re usually all stiff and clumsy in the morning and more limber in the afternoons.
Was that why Jamie was moving so slowly and stiffly now? And wasn’t that a faint ashy tinge to her skin, underneath the redness?
Plastination, my mind whispered. When the body produces enzymes that attack the melanin and produce a greenish compound that also functions to preserve tissue. Jamie had all the signs of infection.
All of a sudden, my head filled with a high pitched whine; my heart started to race. I opened my mouth, but it was Jamie who spoke first.
“Kevin, we need to talk. There’s something I need to tell you.”
I found myself shouting at her. “How could you do this, Jamie! It was stupid! They hadn’t treated the water in a couple days. And why should they? We haven’t had a warm blood in over a week!”
She frowned at me impatiently.
“If you were trying to prove a point, you succeeded. Okay? I get that you think we should do more for the zoms—for…them. But you put yourself at risk.” I was practically crying by them.
“Would you listen to me, Kevin! I’m not infected. Now calm—”
“I love you, Jamie. There, I said it. And now you’ve gone and… Why couldn’t you just love me back?”
Her face collapsed. “I do love you, Kevin, just not…in that way. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, but you refuse to understand. You won’t listen.”
I felt like she’d just torn my heart out and stomped on it.
How could she choose zombies over me? How could she want that? Was there—
I gasped. Was there a zombie out there waiting for her?
I pushed myself out of the chair and away from her. I was repulsed by the idea, and yet I still wanted to go to her, to hold her. But at the same time, I was afraid, repulsed.
“Rest,” I told her, barely managing not to puke. My voice shook. “And use lots of aloe. It’s good for your skin. You don’t want it to peel too badly.” I took a step toward the door. Then I stopped and said, without turning, “I don’t even know you anymore, Jamie.”
“Stop being so melodramatic, Kevin. I’m me.”
Yeah, but for how much longer?
† † †
I was woken up at five o’clock the next morning by the ring tone of my cell phone. Let me just say that I’m a huge fan of Lil Wayne—who isn’t?—but at that ungodly hour, even the harmonious notes of I Miss My Dawgs sound like somebody’s out there castrating the Hounds of Hell without the benefit of anesthesia. Of course, when I’d downloaded it—barely an hour earlier and after a marathon sampling session of about a thousand other tunes—it had seemed like a good idea. Now, it seemed like a horrible mistake.
I was, of course, in no state to talk to anyone, but I picked up the phone and thumbed the green button anyway.
“’Lo?”
That’s the last thing I remember until I was blasted out of a dream by an unspeakable pounding at my bedroom door that sounded as if the hounds were back, angrier than ever and looking for whoever had swiped their ‘nads. This was immediately followed by the equally inhuman, but unmistakable shriek of Gwen’s voice.
“Kevin! Wake up! You left Jamie on the phone, you idiot.”
I blinked at the ceiling a couple times, then lifted my hand away from my ear. The phone was still stuck to it, much to my surprise. Sure enough, the call timer was ticking off seconds: 11:32…11:33…11:34. I winced, realizing I’d fallen asleep on Jamie, and briefly wondered how long it had taken her to realize I’d abandoned her for Dream Land. Eleven and a half minutes, I guess. It seemed inconceivable that she could’ve been talking to me that long. Even worse, I couldn’t imagine what I’d missed her saying. Could she have been trying to apologize?
I’d finally come to the conclusion, probably around four-thirty in the morning, that I really was blowing things out of proportion. If Jamie said she wasn’t infected, then she wasn’t. I was the paranoid one; she’d always been much more rational. After that, I was finally able to fall asleep.
Gwen opened the door and stuck her head into the room and screeched: “And get your hand out of your underpants, you perv!”
“What the—? Get the fuck out of here, Gwen!” I hurled my pillow at her. “And shut the fucking door!”
I heard her cackle as she ran down the steps, then my dad’s voice demanding what all the swearing was about.
“Sorry, man,” I grunted into the phone.
“For falling asleep on me?” Jamie asked. She sounded even more tired than me. “Or for bursting my eardrums just now?”
“Something like that.” I was glad she didn’t mention the hand thing. “You okay? Your voice sounds funny.”
“I can’t work today,” she said. “I’m…still sick.”
“Better or worse than yesterday?”
There was a pause. “Worse.”
I sat up in my bed. Too quick. My head was spinning and my eyes refused to focus. I was trying to remember: What the hell was the incubation period? Were there other symptoms?
Jamie’s voice came to me again, this time sounding very far away. “Can you work for me?”
“What do you mean ‘worse’?”
She exhaled. “I mean I there’s no way I’ll be able to work today, Kev.”
“No, I mean, what…what are your symptoms? How’s your skin?” I wanted to ask her what color it was, but stopped myself before I did. I didn’t really want to know.
“It stings. Okay, it hurts, bad. Remember? Sunburn?” I heard the irritation creeping back into her voice. “No way am I going to be able to sit in a chair. Not for long, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just can’t.” Then: “Okay, I’ve been having cramps, if you really must know.”
Cramps, I knew from eavesdropping, was code for the runs. It was also code for a lot of other things, too, including, “I don’t feel like participating in gym today. Can I just sit this one out?”
I wracked my brain, trying to remember if diarrhea was a symptom of heat exhaustion. I was pretty sure it was, especially if Gwen had forced as much Gatorade into her last night as she said she had. But then again, wasn’t diarrhea also one of the first symptoms of the infection? Or was it constipation?
Did full-fledged zombies even poop?
Damn, I wished I’d paid more attention in class.
I let out a long breath, trying to mask my panic as best as I could. Then I told her to get lots of rest and drink lots of water. Finally I went and worked the double. It felt like the longest fucking day of my life, and yet I can’t remember a thing about it except for checking my cell phone about a billion times to see if she’d called or if it was time to go home yet. Each time I was tempted to dial her number, and each time I didn’t.
When five o’clock rolled around and the pool finally closed, I was surprised to find Gwen sitting in the parking lot waiting for me.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to get you.”
“Really? Why?”
“Jamie asked me to.”
“Oh.”
I was tired and had almost hoped Gwen’d say she’d done it out of sisterly love or concern or pity, something sappy like that. Just having that thought took me a little by surprise. What was wrong with me? Gwen was demon spawn, and here I was looking for her affection. I mean, she used to be nice, a very long time ago. But then, right around the time of the condom fiasco, she turned into the Ice Queen. Puberty, claimed my dad, but then he refused to explain what that was supposed to mean.
I was exhausted. That had to explain it.
“Besides,” Gwen went on, her voice getting that irritating whiny nasally thing that happened when she wasn’t getting what she wanted, “Jamie was acting like a baby. I couldn’t take it anymore, not three days in a row. I had to get out of there.”
I looked over and wondered how she’d gotten stuck nursing Jamie back to health rather than Mrs. D, but then I remembered she’d just been promoted regional salesperson for a cosmetics company that sold creams and stuff for the Undead. Pretty Zombie, or something like that. Business was booming and she was rarely at home anymore.
I wiped the sweat from my face and leaned back in the seat and let out a deep breath.
“How’s she doing?”
“Tired. Grumpy.” Gwen turned to me and gave me this sly smile. Without warning, she punched me in the arm.
“What was that for?” I rubbed it. Not because it hurt, but because now I really was confused. Here I was pouring out my soul—okay, privately, but still—and just when I decide she’s a jerk, she gets all touchy-feely.
“She’s worried about you, little brother.”
I grunted and looked out the window. “I don’t know why. She really needs to worry about herself.”
Gwen gave me one of her signature evil snickers. “She thinks you’re going to do something stupid. Can’t say as I disagree.”
I gave her a strange look, not sure what to think.
“She’s the one making stupid decisions,” I said. “And I am not your little brother.”
† † †
I didn’t see much of Jamie over the next several days. In fact, I didn’t see much of anyone except for the Undead. That’s because I took all of Jamie’s shifts while she holed herself up in her room ‘recovering.’ I hated the fact that she would let Gwen in to see her, but not me. I hated that I had to rely on Gwen for updates, which were practically useless anyway. But most of all, I hated knowing that I was probably missing out on something important. Maybe even her last days of being a warm blood.
Gwen’s words kept coming back, haunting me: She’s worried about you, little brother.
Worried? About me? What the hell for?
And why the hell couldn’t I find any information online on how long it took to become a zombie after drinking contaminated water? With a deep bite, it took a matter of hours; a shallow bite, days. But all I could find about water was from this one website called Zom’s-the-Bomb (dot com), which suggested it could take anywhere from a few days to several weeks to turn.
It didn’t help that I had a front row seat to Gabby McNichols’s deterioration. Today, for example, she came in and her arm was a mess. The skin on her neck was torn open and had started to peel back. I could see the muscles underneath. I considered telling her that she was getting way too much sun, but I wasn’t sure she’d even understand me anymore. I didn’t even bother kicking her out, even though she was clearly in violation of the open wound policy.
Incredibly, she was still wearing designer bathing suits.
Almost equally incredible, she still looked pretty good in them.
Christ, what am I thinking?
“Has Jamie been to see the doctor?” I asked Gwen at dinner that night.
“What for?”
“I don’t know, blood test?”
“Her electrolytes are fine.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t been thinking about her electrolytes.
“She’s well enough that she thinks she’ll be able to work tomorrow,” Gwen announced, twirling her spaghetti on her fork.
“Really?”
“Kevin,” my mom said, “don’t talk with your mouth full.
”
The Gwench smirked. I considered asking her if she’d stolen Christmas lately, but decided it wasn’t worth it. I shut up and ate.
My shift the next day seemed to drag on forever. I was anxious to see Jamie. I swear I must’ve burned holes in my retinas looking at the sun as I tried to see if it was moving and hadn’t somehow gotten stuck in the sky.
Finally, about fifteen minutes before my shift ended, she arrived. She was fully clothed, head to toe, with a loose shirt and her light pink pajama bottoms on. She wore dark sunglasses and a wide brimmed straw hat. I watched as she shuffled stiffly in. The skin on her face was still red, but underneath it there was this deathly pallor, the telltale sign that the disease had started attacking her melanin. And she hadn’t even turned yet.
I winced, hating to see her like this, but I otherwise pretended not to notice. In fact, just that morning I’d finally decided that I wasn’t going to worry about it anymore. She’d made her decision. All I could do was get on with doing what I needed to do.
She stopped at the base of the chair and just sort of stood there.
“Hey, J,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.
The mercury had pegged out at a nice round eighty degrees by eleven o’clock and had just stayed there. It was hot enough that I was sweating, but not so hot that it was completely unbearable.
I got stiffly down from the chair and hoped Jamie didn’t notice it enough to think that I might be making fun of her or the other zoms. I could see Gabby shuffling around on her side of the pool, moving even slower than yesterday, taking longer to find her chair. I made a show of rotating my arms to loosen them up while waiting for Jamie to climb up into the chair, but she didn’t move to do so. After a moment, she raised her arm and pointed across the pool.
“That two-piece doesn’t leave much to the imagination,” she croaked. At least her vocal cords hadn’t completely gone yet.
I wasn’t sure if I’d detected a note of jealousy in her voice, or appreciation. It was a strange thing for her to say, especially after the huge argument we’d had the other day.
Insomnia: Paranormal Tales, Science Fiction, & Horror Page 11