by Ann Christy
But he’s not our only company. Charlie smashed a couple of deaders trapped in the break room, but they weren’t very mobile. Outside, the deaders that are mobile have followed the sounds of the in-betweener or the disturbance we caused. They’ve congregated. A few of them have latched onto a fire hydrant where the paint is peeling off to expose the metal, but the rest are doing the deader shuffle, just wandering around and waiting for something to attract them. Something like us.
No matter what, we’re a little bit screwed here. In-betweeners are easily distracted, deaders too, but they’re also pretty low on energy as a general rule. They’ll stay close unless something more enticing happens elsewhere and the ones by the hydrants aren’t going anywhere.
I sigh, fogging the glass with my breath. Another tiny squeal of pain comes from down the hall.
Trying my best not to jostle my arm on its cushion, I reach for my backpack with my other hand. I’ve already checked, so I know everything is intact. The precious vials still contain their clear fluid filled with invisible machines. Having it close just makes me feel better. I don’t know how we’ll get out of this, but I want my backpack close when that time comes.
After a long while spent watching the deaders, one of which is softly biting at his own reflection in a window across the street, Charlie comes out of the office and shuts the door with exaggerated care.
His face is grim as he walks down the hallway, so I know he’s got more bad news to give me.
“She’s asleep. We need to get her back so Savannah can take a look at her,” he says. The way his eyes flick away as he says that last part tells me he’s talking about the injuries that washed her legs in blood.
“I can do it. I just need some help with my arm,” I say.
He sucks in a deep breath, eyeing my swollen wrist suspiciously.
“We can’t leave my arm like this. At least not for long,” I add. I don’t like the idea any more than he obviously does, but I do know you can’t leave a joint out of alignment for too long or else the damage can be permanent. I need my hands.
Charlie squats on the floor next to my cushions and crawls over to get within viewing range of the windows. For a moment, he watches the deaders and cranes his neck to get the in-betweener in view. The in-betweener has moved a little further down the block and isn’t making as much noise, but he doesn’t seem like he’s in any hurry to leave the area either. He’s caught a paper and is stuffing it into his mouth at the moment.
“Does he look like one of those guys?” he asks, referencing the five dead guys we captured and the one we took care of on our way out, the ones who we think took Gloria. We know there was at least one more out there based on the number of sleeping bags in their lair.
I nod. “I think so, but who knows?”
With that out of the way, silence falls between us again. I know he wants to talk about Gloria.
“Did you find out anything more?” I ask, breaking into the topic.
“Sort of. She wrote down some basics, but she needed rest and I think her thumbs are broken. Maybe a couple of fingers, too. It’s hard for her to write. We’ll just have to find out the rest later.”
The big topic lies between us like a mountain. Her mouth.
“Did you see it?” I ask.
Charlie lowers himself to the floor, careful not to jostle my arm in the process. He nods, but his eyes are clouded by whatever he saw in there with Gloria. I’m not sure if he needs to talk about it or would much rather avoid the subject. It’s hard to tell with Charlie sometimes. Then again, maybe he’s not sure which of those things he would rather do.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” I offer and hold out my good hand for him to take.
He laces his fingers in mine and squeezes my hand a little. Then he lets it go and sighs. When he looks back up, his eyes are shining with tears and he says, “They cut out part of her tongue.” His breath hitches in roughly and he wipes under his now-running nose. “Because she made too much noise.”
It isn’t like I couldn’t have guessed that. The weird darkness in her mouth and the garbled sounds she made as we hurried her inside the building told me something of the sort had happened. But hearing it is like whipping the cover off a hidden cache of brutality in the world. What’s happened to Gloria is the reason I stayed inside the apartment where I lived with Sam and never went further than the roof for a little sunlight. It’s the same reason Emily remained so steadfastly hidden.
Charlie starts to cry and I pull him to my shoulder, my arm around his neck and my teeth gritted against the surge of pain in my injured arm as his sobs jostle me. He needs to cry this out. When Gloria came he latched onto her like a puppy. Gloria was—is—a real mom. Not a college student lassoed into taking care of him by circumstances, not a teen younger than himself left with someone’s orphaned baby—a real mother with a kid. And she easily included him, and even me, in that overall maternal umbrella of warmth.
It’s amazing how a few months can make a person seem like they’ve been around forever and make their loss an excruciating and unacceptable one. And now this.
After a time, his sobs diminish to hiccups, but he stays curled into my shoulder. He’s taller than I am so our position is awkward. But I don’t want him to feel bad about needing some comfort, so I take pains not to fidget or give him any sign of how uncomfortable this is for me. I keep watch and listen for any noises that might indicate a deader has made it past the barrier we hastily erected at the door when we came in.
The in-betweener is gone, at least for the moment, but I don’t take that to mean he’ll stay gone. Distracted or not, they often return to the places where their interest was piqued. Whether it’s memory or something else, I don’t know, but either way, I won’t feel like he’s gone until one of us has actually bashed his brain into foamy, pink mush.
The deaders are still doing their deader things, but the agitation is bleeding out of their movements and they seem settled into their actions, ready to wear a new groove into the record of their afterlives.
As the afternoon grows, the light pouring into the window intensifies until it feels almost hot. I feel it when Charlie is finally done with his crying because his body tenses a little, as if he’s embarrassed that he let himself go like that.
I smooth back the hair from his forehead where he’s nestled into my shoulder and whisper, “It’s going to be okay, Charlie.”
As he starts to disengage himself, I plant a kiss on his forehead and push him up, trying to smile but not doing too well at it. My arm hurts so much that it’s making my head hurt and now my butt and back hurt from being seated awkwardly for so long. All in all, I’m just a big old bundle of throbs and pains.
He looks at my arm and says, “I’m sorry.”
I wave it away, carefully lifting my legs and butt, one side at a time, to let the blood flow again. “What do we do now?”
“She can’t travel. She needs food, rest, water. Lots of all of it. And medical care we can’t give her,” he answers.
I nod, because this is what I expected. And really, there’s only one thing to be done.
“Charlie,” I say, waiting for him to look me in the eyes before continuing. “We’ve got one bike and I can’t hang onto you like this. And, no offense, but I’m not feeling too confident about you and I trying to fix my arm. And Gloria for sure can’t make it like she is. You have to go back, get one of the others and bring the trikes.”
He nods a little, taking in what I say. I figure he must have already thought about this and come up with the same simple geometry for this rescue.
“Can you really stay on watch for that long? It will be a long night,” he says, examining my face to see if I’m lying.
I do my best to look confident, though I’m far from it. “Absolutely,” I say.
He leans over quickly and plants a kiss on my cheek, the first time he’s ever done such a thing. I’m so surprised by the gesture that I can’t help but grin.
He gr
ins back and says, “Let me just get you set up and then I’ll be back before you know it.”
Two Weeks Ago - Holding On
We think it’s chicken pox, but it could be measles. We don’t have any books that contain good information on those two diseases, just a pamphlet or two that tell us the general symptoms: rash, fever, stomach upset and all the rest. Charlie has taken to calling it “The Pox” like it’s some medieval curse or something. I tried to tell him that used to be what people called venereal disease, but that only made him laugh.
There’s no way to know for sure which disease Jon has, which is weird and terrifying considering what else we could come up against given time. While we don’t know with any exactitude how Jon got it, the likely culprits are the coats, blankets, and clothes we gathered during one of our recent scavenging runs.
We don’t, as a general rule, take anything from places where deaders and in-betweeners have been trapped for any amount of time. Mostly, that’s because of the smells that seep into anything made of fabric in such situations. But when we come upon a cache left behind by people who died elsewhere or item left in places they managed to escape from after turning, we take them without much thought. We make exceptions if animals have made obvious nests in them. We don’t touch those, vague folklore about plague and rats making us leery of such—not to mention that fleas are a nuisance—but none of us ever considered actual real diseases. And that appears to have been a huge mistake.
Jon’s fever is gone at last. His temperature has been normal since last night and he slept deeply and well. His spots have changed from itching, horrible blistery things to equally itchy scabs. Keeping his hands away from his scabs is a full time job. He’s still got a touchy stomach, and diarrhea keeps rearing its ugly head, but I know he feels better because he’s getting bored. That’s the best sign.
I’m not being swayed by it though, and we play together in the office, staying away from everyone else except Charlie. Since we were both still in middle school—or going into high school in Charlie’s case—we’re reasonably sure that our vaccinations were up to date, including the one for chicken pox. Savannah isn’t at all sure about her status and Matt and Gregory are both sure they’ve had the pox, but descended into arguing about it so we’re keeping them away just to be sure. Maribelle is just a wild card and she’s been scrubbed down from head to toe every single day since Jon got sick. So far, so good.
Poor Savannah has had to do more laundry than any of us ever imagined because of this incident. Every sleeping bag, blanket and piece of cloth we have squirreled away is being washed. Lines are strung like an obstacle course between the buildings and for days our things have flapped like celebratory bunting in the breeze. Her hands are so red and chapped they’ve started to bleed, so Gregory is taking over the last part of the laundry while she sits with her hands wrapped in cream covered gauze and complains about how he does it. Back seat driving, washer-woman style.
But all in all, and pain-in-the-butt workload aside, Jon’s on the mend and we’re all breathing a sigh of relief. Except for Emily, that is. Charlie and I are taking turns watching her while the other is with Jon. And now, he’s even sleeping just outside the visual range of the cages in case something happens.
When I told Emily what was going on, she was still fairly aware. She made an almost-laughing sound and squeezed my hand. She’d said, “Things happen like they’re supposed to. Jon needs you.”
I’m pretty sure she was telling me that it was okay to let her die. Time has gotten away from me. I had so hoped to get to the hospital before she died. I wanted to save her like she saved me. It’s not going to happen. That was the last time we spoke to each other. I’m so glad that I got to tell her how much I loved her then and equally glad she told me the same.
This morning Charlie told me that her breathing is hitching and uneven, like he’s not sure if she’s going to take another breath, and her eyes aren’t blinking anymore. He had to tape them closed last night so they wouldn’t dry out.
It’s time.
I think she is beyond suffering at this point, but I’m very sure that I’m not going to make it to the base in time to help her while she’s alive. She’s afraid to die, but she’s more interested in finding out if there’s a cure that will work for those who have already died than in saving her own life. She’s never outright said to kill her. She’s never said the suffering is too much. Now, she can’t say one way or another and the decision is left to me.
That means I’m going to have to minimize the damage when she dies, rather than hope she won’t before I can work up enough support for the long trip to the base. I have no way of knowing if she’s truly infected with the nanites, but her bites and scratches since she found me has made me believe she has to be. And she believes that nanites are what let her live so long, that they are responsible for slowing the progress of her disease. That makes sense, so I’m trying very hard to convince myself she has a nice load of nanites in her blood. I don’t want to do this, but I have no choice and the thought of her dying without me being there with her is just not acceptable.
Jon bounces around tossing blocks over his shoulder while he sings a nonsense song. He’s been repeating the same silly phrase for about fifteen minutes and I’m ready to divert him onto something new. He doesn’t want to be entertained. He doesn’t want to play with another toy. He wants out of this room, to go play outside, to be in the sunlight even if it is too cool outside for a kid just getting over a fever. Spring is here, and summer should be coming, but it’s a fickle thing and today is positively brisk.
Charlie walks in just about the time my patience has run out and I’m about to give in and let Jon have a good run-about outside. He takes in the scene and grins at me, while Jon gets a running start straight for him.
“Oof,” Charlie grunts as Jon slams into his legs, a little boy grin shining on his scabby face. “I think you’ve got a future in football!”
“What’s football?” Jon asks, raising his arms to be lifted.
Charlie obliges, giving Jon a tickle once he’s settled into his arms. He looks at me and says, “And this is why I support you going to the base. What’s football? Civilization is falling, I tell you.”
I can feel the smile sliding off my face, thoughts of Emily pushing in again. Charlie must see it too, because he puts Jon down and swats him on the butt playfully.
He crosses the small room in a few steps and pulls me to my feet, his hands staying wrapped around my upper arms, as if to give me strength. “I can do this with you. Savannah can watch him from the hallway for a little while.”
“How did you know? That I’m going to do it today, I mean,” I ask.
“It’s written all over your face, Veronica. You’re not exactly cagey,” he says, his tone teasing and light, trying to minimize the seriousness for a moment.
I appreciate it. I really do. But, it doesn’t feel right at all. We should have horses draped in black and people wailing in mourning. That’s how I feel.
“Sorry,” he says. “How do you want to do this?”
*****
I can feel Savannah’s eyes on my back from the platform as Charlie and I walk across the warehouse floor and out the door. Gregory peeks over from the roof above us, giving me a solemn nod, knowing where we’re going. Matt is at the fence, looping deaders in our time-honored daily fashion and doesn’t look over. The air is crisp, but with a promise of warmth later on that feels good. It’s been a long spring and today, it’s showing me its colors. The field outside the fence is a riot of color as early spring wildflowers greedily poke their faces up toward the sun and the trees beyond are so green that they almost hurt my eyes.
It’s a short walk that feels eternal. I’ve got a bag with what we’ll need inside it, but this is completely new territory for me. I’ve never committed murder with the intention of having it be as brief a death as possible before.
My hands are sweaty and damp by the time we get to the barrier around the
cages. Charlie pulls open the door and we step in to a sudden cacophony of hungry groans and squeals from the in-betweener cage. As always, my blood pounds in my ears when I hear them. The fear of them is as instinctive as any human fear. But, I don’t flinch and Charlie barely spares that cage a glance.
Emily’s cage is silent and still, her form so slight on the pallet she lays on that she almost looks like a child of Jon’s age. Whatever weight she managed to put on, knowing there would come a time when it would be harder to eat, is long gone, and her bones are now sharply defined. She doesn’t move at all as we open the cage door, the rattle of locks and chains not breaking through whatever purgatory she’s in.
The medical tape over her eyes doesn’t move and her breath hitches in terrible strange groans that I think might be what people call a death rattle. Her cheekbones are sharply defined blades with hollows so deep beneath that they are black with shadow. I once thought those her best feature, reminding me of an old-school glamorous movie-star I saw now and then on old TV movies. It’s hard to see her like this.
“How could I let it go this far?” I ask in a whisper.
Charlie’s hand finds my shoulder and rests there, heavy and comforting. “Because once it’s done, there’s no going back. It’s hard to let go.”
The pain behind my jaw is growing, the tears no longer held in check. His hand falls away as I kneel next to Emily, taking one of her chained hands in mine. It’s so light, all I feel is the weight of the metal. I rub my cheek across her limp palm and whisper, “I’m here, Emily.”
Her skin is warm, unnaturally so, but no color flushes her skin. She’s burning up from the inside and there’s nothing I can do about it anymore except make it stop.
Charlie kneels at her other side and looks at me, waiting for me to be ready. I’m not and never will be, but the more I delay the harder it will be. I carefully lay Emily’s hand back down, drop the bag from my shoulder and open it up. I hand Charlie one of the two ropes I’ve packed and nod toward her feet. I take the other and unroll it until I’ve got it laid out so that the halfway mark is just above her head. Then I give a nod to Charlie where he waits for the okay and lean down close to Emily’s ear.