“Can I read that?” My mother startles me with her sudden presence.
“I’m not finished, but yeah, sure.” I don’t care. It means I get another break from schoolwork.
I get something unhealthy to snack on while she sits absorbed in her reading. I return and brace myself for her comments.
“Honey, I think this is a great idea.” Pause. The pause is always followed by a “Buuuuuuuut” and the longer the pause, the bigger the “But.” She probably thinks I can’t hit a target the size of a barn. She’d be right. It’s not like I’ve ever shown an aptitude for accuracy. Still, if I had a chance to practice with her gun…
“But…are you sure you’d be able to shoot absolutely anything?”
“Um, what do you mean?”
“I mean, if you see something like an infected child, a toddler even, would you be able to aim a gun at their head and shoot? Would you be able to do the same to an infected friend?”
“If they’re a danger to others, I can.” I say this without hesitation, hoping she doesn’t notice the lack of conviction in my voice.
“I’m sure you could, but you might hesitate, wobble a bit, maybe even overthink things. They carefully test each applicant, and they look for people as quick and emotionless as machines. There’s no mercy in those situations. I know you’re capable of kindness, even though it needs a little work where your sister’s concerned. It would make me sad if they managed to train that out of you. Will you still like yourself when you become the kind of person Homeland Security needs?”
I sigh. She’s right about everything, except the “kindness” part. I hadn’t really thought this through. The chance to be outdoors in the sun crowded out all other thoughts.
“I’m sorry, hon. It’s just a paper. Your teacher doesn’t know you like I do and will probably be very impressed with what you want to do. You just keep on writing.” She didn’t need to add that every other kid in class would be writing about the same thing. There weren’t many other types of jobs available these days.
I turn back to my work. “Thanks, Mom,” I mumble. I delete the whole paper and start again.
“When I grow up, I’d like to be a flight attendant. I could relax at work knowing that I’m safer in the air than on the ground, and I might get to see more of my father.”
JESSE
Stupid KC. She got me in trouble with Mom again. I know Mom’s afraid I’ll see something that will scare me and keep me up all night if I look out, but I’m so bored. I can’t see my friends on our right side because we have no windows facing them. I can look through our windows to the house on the other side, but no one’s there. Mom said the lady’s parents live on the street behind us, so they’re probably staying with them.
There’s only old people living across from us, and there’s been no sight or sound of them. I think they ran away or died. That’s why I was so surprised to see someone at old man Eric’s.
His face was really white. Not normal white, but sickly white like my fish’s belly after he died. There was another thing that kept him from looking like a real person—his eyes. They were really dark and sunken and serious. He didn’t look right, but he didn’t look like one of those dead-alive things either. He looked like a ghost. I jumped when I first saw him, and then again when he disappeared, but I wasn’t scared of him.
I used to be scared of ghosts. I didn’t know what they were when I was really little, but I learned about them when I’d watch Dr. Who with Hou and KC when Mom wasn’t around, and from other shows I’d peep at from the shadow of the stairs. Ghosts back then were pee-in-your pants scary. I’d watch a show with ghosts in it and suddenly it seemed like every dark patch and every creak was something that wanted to haunt me. My mom wondered why I would then sleep in KC’s room when we fought so much, but it’s hard to sleep when there’s stuff under my bed or behind my door that might want to get me.
No, I’m not scared of spirits anymore, they’re just wispy things. In the movies they’re floaty bits of cold air, and air can’t hurt me. I know that spirits can’t hurt me, but the bodies they leave behind can. They can make me lose everything I love. So I’m no longer scared of ghosts. Instead I’m scared of the dead bodies, bodies that want to bite me and make me like them. And I’m really scared of the stuff that makes a body dead and then not-dead.
We all stopped getting spooked out over dopey things and instead started to be afraid of things we thought were safe, like water. We’re all scared of water now. Water can’t be trusted. Water brings death. It brings death and then keeps dead things going.
I’m still having a hard time getting used to this new fear. I love water. I love my memories of it: swimming in the summer and throwing water balloons full of it and drinking it with lots of ice (especially since KC hates it when I crunch ice around her). I miss taking long baths and playing with all my wind-up bath toys. I miss how good it felt to play in it when it rained really hard. It was one of the few things that KC and I could do without fighting—we would run outside while the skies pounded us with rain and stand in the mini river at the side of the road and splash and dance around until we were as soaked as fish.
Water was supposed to be good for you. Water was supposed to keep you from dying in the desert. We were supposed to drink at least eight glasses of it every day. It cleaned out scraped knees so I wouldn’t get infections. It kept us from overheating. So how can it suddenly be dangerous?
“Because it carries parasites,” said Houston when I asked him. “They ride in the rain and look for openings in your body to get in.” Hou was good at explaining things to me because he didn’t exaggerate or tease me. “That’s why we have to drink bottled water and bathe in salt water.”
“Does the salt kill them? Can’t we just drink salt water?”
“Have you ever drunk salt water?”
“Well, yeah, every time I’d get a too-strong wave at the beach I’d tumble and get a mouthful of it and…oh. Yeah…that tasted gross.” It might have tasted gross, but all this talk about salt water made me want to go to the seaside.
“Exactly” Houston said. “And too much salt can kill you.”
“I don’t like the salt water. It stings my scrapes and makes my hair feel like straw.”
“I can think of worse things.” Houston said. He’s right. I’d rather he’d have a salt shower than no shower at all, especially now that we have to live close together all the time.
“Where’d the parasites come from?” I’m glad Houston is the kind of brother who tells it to me straight. Nobody else is willing to talk to me about this stuff.
“Not sure. Maybe they’re microorganisms that got loose from some mad scientist’s lab. Maybe something that was once harmless has evolved into something deadly with consciousness. Or maybe they’re just aliens from space.”
“They can’t be. Aliens are as big as you and me… or even bigger. You can see them.”
“That’s in the movies. The whole universe is made up of things too small for us to see.”
“Like the sugar in Kool-Aid?”
“No, even smaller than that. Small like a germ or a virus. Did you ever see the virus that gave you your last cold?”
“No, but if they’re that small, how can they kill something so much bigger than them?”
“Germs and viruses kill people all the time.”
“Okay, what I really mean is, how can something that small control a body eleventy-hundred thousand times bigger than it?”
“Because it’s not just one parasite controlling it. It’s millions and millions of them working together to control a body, like a machine. Different parasites take over different parts of the body. Some of them take over the brain and turn it back into a supercomputer and the others do the job of the nerves and muscles and obey orders from the command center in the brain.”
“Like those soldier ants on the Nat Geo channel that link up together and turn themselves into bridges or nests or rafts?”
“Exactly.”
“But how do they kill so quickly? Someone gets bitten or someone drinks water with them in it and they’re dead in seconds.”
“They zip up to the brain and kill it, like an air bubble in an IV line.”
That confused me. “A what?”
Houston sighed. “Never mind.”
“But if they can control the brain, can’t they control the person without killing them?”
“I don’t really know. Maybe they can only live in dead tissue. Maybe our will is too strong and they can’t make our bodies obey them until we’re dead.”
“But why do they try to bite more people once they get a body? Are they hungry? Can they only eat flesh like a zombie?”
“There are no such things as zombies.”
“That’s what I keep telling KC!”
“We don’t know what they feed off of, maybe they feed off of decomposing tissue. Maybe they need the gasses dead bodies give off.”
“Live bodies give off gasses too.”
Houston smiled at this. ”You’re talking about different kinds of gas and, um, well, never mind.”
“So is that why they can’t infect plants when they rain down on them, because they’re still alive? I thought they’d hang out in the vegetables and wait for someone to eat them.” I like that last idea. It gives me an excuse not to eat my vegetables.
“They can’t seem to handle being in something living, and there’s no central brain in a plant to kill and control.”
“But the biting, why do they do it?”
“They do it so they can get into your bloodstream and take over your body.”
“They don’t like the body they’re in?”
“I’m sure they like it fine at first, but all bodies eventually decompose, even though it’s been really cold lately. The more it rots, the less they can do with it. It’s not like those movies where they’re still running around the countryside months later. Sinews will disintegrate to the point where they can’t hold the bones and muscles together and then there’s no more movement. They need to move on to a fresh body.”
“Ewwwwww, gross! But what if they can’t find one?”
“Then they look for a body of fresh water they can hole up in till someone comes in contact with it.”
“Like a puddle?”
“No, I think they prefer lakes and ponds. Puddles eventually dry up, and if they dry up, they die.”
So now we’re all afraid of water. We’re not supposed to be afraid of bottled water, at least not for now. These parasites seem to be able to get into the tiniest unseen nick in a human’s skin, which makes me wonder if we really can keep them out of a bottle. We’re afraid of lots of types of water, but the form we’re most afraid of is rain.
I don’t want to think of this stuff anymore. I glance outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of my ghost. Sure enough, he has reappeared. He looks at me, then looks up at the sky. My eyes follow his right up to the clouds.
It looks like it’s going to rain today.
HOUSTON
“Rabid dogs have taken to the streets in recent weeks; there appears to be no one left in Animal Control to take care of the problem. Homeland Security cannot spare any troops to tackle the issue. We urge everyone to be vigilant and stay indoors as much as possible. Look for the following signs...”
Click.
“Fighting has broken out in several refugee centers, prompting leaders to relocate instigators to abandoned houses.”
Click.
“Do not interpret the relative quiet and lack of sightings in the suburbs as a reason to venture out of your homes; soldiers have recently discovered several parasites hiding in foliage around homes and offices.”
Click.
“Scientists are working around the clock to locate the source of the infection. They are looking into the more extreme environments since tests prove it can survive the hottest and coldest temperatures. As a reminder, please do not try to purify your water by boiling or freezing it.”
Click. Sigh.
KC’s doing homework on the computer, Mom is working out, Naked is sleeping and snoring, and Jesse’s doing whatever Jesse does when she’s not running around in circles or whining about not getting out. I don’t like reading. I’m done with schoolwork. There’s nothing new on TV. There’s been nothing to look at outside for weeks…I never thought I could be bored enough to envy my friends stuck in refugee centers.
Actually, the person I really envy right now is Dad. Dad used to be an executive business coach who travelled the world to help CEOs of large companies. Unfortunately he got stuck overseas when the world went into meltdown. So to pass the time he’s morphed his former army life with his psychology degree and is coaching to fill a new need—helping big companies keep their businesses running in a world full of the Infected Dead. Usually it means a company’s office complex turns into compound living for workers and their families, with all the personal and political problems that come with cramming a bunch of scared and emotional people into an enclosed space. Dad helps them all get along the best he can and teaches the managers how to run a company and a village. That part doesn’t sound interesting, but the travel does. Well, the travel and the safety of airports, flying, and compound living. Unfortunately only the most important people are allowed to travel now, especially with our current shortage of pilots, and he can’t seem to get the clearance to catch a flight home.
So Dad is trying to earn a spot on a plane by creating a safe working and living environment for those considered important enough to fly. He’s currently taking care of a banker in Singapore along with his family and his entire workforce. When he finishes with that project, he can use this guy’s pass to get home or fly us to one of those secure compounds. In the meantime we’re lucky that we can afford to stay in our own home and eat food of our choosing, not that MRE crap the government drops off. We’re lucky we have a solid brick house and a means to defend ourselves. We’re lucky to have our own space, keep our own stuff, and not have to deal with total strangers; Strangers that could smell, be loud in your personal space, take your stuff, or take up your Internet time watching YouTube clips of cats and drugged kids coming back from the dentist.
Yeah, we’re lucky to have a life of privacy and relative safety, but my parents want more. They want the safety of compound living with the luxuries of a holiday. They want one of those five-star high-rises retooled for today’s crisis. They want the fully loaded spacious apartment with a great view and a glass-enclosed balcony. They want to be able to walk the dog within the grounds under a glass dome without the fear of rain. They want the high walls and levels of security that keep the parasites at bay. They want the top schools within the compound so we can do our learning outside the home. They want us to have something to do that lets us leave the safety of our home for the safety of our immediate area so we’re not cooped up and fighting with each other all the time.
They would have never wanted enclosed living in the Life Before. They don’t intend for it to be a permanent situation in the Afterlife. They think it will be like a temporary military assignment where we live somewhere else for a bit and then return home. They’re hoping we can board up our home against looters and parasites and squatters and live in the safety of a compound until this all passes and we can get back to our normal lives.
I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. It’s not that I don’t have faith in the scientists—these parasites must have a weakness and we’ll eventually find it. It’s just that even if we manage to get rid of these things, people have lost too much to forget and go back to being “normal.” We’ve lost loved ones, we’ve lost our independence, and we’ve lost our innocence. I can see my family returning to our home, but I can’t see us walking the dog again without a gun and a raincoat.
We’ll all just have to adapt to a new way of life to survive. Yet my parents seem to crave the Life Before to the point that they think our only hope is returning to it. I keep my own pessimistic thought
s to myself because I’m pretty sure that if they start looking at a more realistic and desolate future, their minds might snap.
I go upstairs to see if KC is off the computer yet; maybe we can Skype Dad and see where he is now. I catch Jesse staring out the window.
“Psst! Hey! You know you’re not supposed to be looking out there!”
“I was looking at the ghost across the street and then it started to rain.”
I feel my blood go cold. How long has it been raining? Has any of it made its way into the house? How could we have missed it? Maybe we didn’t notice it because it’s a light rain. It falls so softly so we didn’t hear it when it started. I shout upstairs “Mom, KC—Rain! I’ll check the downstairs!” KC and Mom react immediately; I can hear them running around on the floors above, making sure no outside liquids made it inside. I look for telltale puddles or drops as well, but we’ve got good double-glazed windows, a solid roof, and so far we’ve not suffered any deadly leaks.
Jess is still at her window as we all meet up and report the all clear. She’s now joined by a very alert Naked. She’s not barking, but she is hyper-focused on something.
“Jess! What are you doing?!” demands Mom.
“I hear something.”
Now that she’s mentions it, I can hear something too. And then I see it.
It’s the Pickup Truck, and it’s slowing down in front of our house.
RENEE
I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I didn’t notice the rain, and I can’t believe there’s another Pickup truck on our street. Twice in one day! Things had been quiet before I hit Catherine, and now it feels like we’re regressing to the bad old days, when parasites stumbled around on the street and we prayed the Pickup Truck would come for them before they started scratching at our doors.
Notes from a Necrophobe Page 4