Notes from a Necrophobe

by T. C. Armstrong

  We’re all looking at Mr. Cromwell with total respect, but he just looks at Sarah and Dorothy like he can’t believe it himself. He’s sweating a lot too, probably from moving all that furniture by himself. “I took a chance that there wasn’t a lock on the door to the roof anymore since we used whatever locks we could find to secure the seventy-two-hour kits. I figured it was about time we caught a break. At the least it was worth a shot. Even if it was locked, we could have blocked the door to the office and holed up inside the classroom long enough to figure out our next move.

  “It was better than I’d hoped. There was a chain loosely draped on the handles, but no lock. I made sure it wasn’t raining and then sent Dorothy and Sarah up the ladder to the roof, making sure to re-chain the door from the outside. I didn’t have something with me to lock it, but there were some small tools scattered on the ground, so I jammed a screwdriver through the holes in the chain. I think it will hold, at least for now.

  “We saw the soldier’s tent almost as soon as we got onto the roof and made our way towards it, then we stumbled across the trapdoor that leads to the clubhouse. It wasn’t locked.”

  “Score one for sloppy security!” Doom says grumpily. I let go of Sarah long enough to see if he’s angry about being kicked. He’s lucky it wasn’t KC he shut out there. She would have killed him instead of kicked him. Doom doesn’t look angry, he just looks sore as he rubs his legs with his hands.

  “I didn’t expect anything to come from the roof,” my mother mumbles under her breath.

  HOUSTON

  Everything goes quiet for a while. We need a break from talking and crying and panicking; there’s just too much to take in right now. At first people seem to be looking at their feet or at something in the distance, but then Doom lifts his head up and asks, “So what do we do now?”

  Before my mom can say anything KC speaks up. “I think we should get ready to move up to the roof.”

  This brings Nadia up onto her feet. Up till then she had been slouching in one of the theater seats watching the others carry the footlockers onto the stage. Mouse, Kaboom, Nemesis, and Doom must agree with KC because they automatically start going through the split kits to see what’s worth keeping.

  “Don’t be stupid!” Nadia shouts at KC. “It’s cold enough as it is! Can’t you see we’ve been through enough? Can’t you see I’ve been through enough? I mean, I shouldn’t even be here, I should be all warm and cozy with the soldiers in the new refugee center!”

  “Sweetie…” pleads Kaboom.

  “No! You know it’s true! I’m only here because I associated with you! You and your stupid club got me in this fix.” Her eyes are shooting daggers into Kaboom and he staggers back at the force of her expression.

  “All this ‘roughing it’ is easy for you guys; you’re used to it. I can’t live like you! I can’t live with you! I’m sick of my hair being greasy! I’m sick of wearing dirty clothes! And I’m sick of how you all smell!” Nadia’s voice goes up a pitch with each new phrase she spits out. “I need showers and decent clothes and organic food and my Tempur-Pedic mattress! I need my nanny! I need my home!” She looks at the ceiling, stamps her delicate little foot and starts to preach to no one in particular. “Don’t you know who I am? I used to have money to burn!”

  “Yeah, and I hear you were quite the pyromaniac,” KC snickers.

  I swear I feel the room heat up with the sudden spike in Nadia’s anger. KC and Nadia are both on their feet and fully engaged in a standoff. Their eyes lock on to each other’s and they’re panting like they’ve been wrestling. I hear Kaboom ask Mom with a worried voice, “Shouldn’t we break the two of them up?”

  “Have you been drinking hand sanitizer?” laughs Nemesis. “Don’t stop them now. This is the most entertainment I’ve had in a month!”

  “Yeah,” Doom whispers, as if he’s afraid Nadia will hear. “I almost feel like I should be munching on popcorn right now.”

  Mom gives Nemesis a small smile and puts a reassuring arm around Kaboom. She speaks quietly, but clearly. “No. Whatever these two have going on between them needs to be sorted out now. If you don’t let them work it out, they’ll store up so much spite one of them will explode and someone’s going to get pushed off a roof.” The others seem to agree because everyone else is just standing by, looking either shocked or amused.

  Nadia finally manages to blurt out through clenched teeth, “Shut up. You’re just jealous! Besides, I know your little secret, I’ve caught you reading when you thought we were all asleep. I know of only one person who’s an expert at survival, someone who wrote down all that good advice you claim as your own. You can’t tell me the Lake Vostok theory was all your idea.”

  “What’s she talking about?” asks Nemesis.

  KC rolls her eyes and makes a dismissive wave with her hand. “It’s just Nadia speaking Prig Latin again.”

  KC and Nadia carry on trading insults but I stop paying attention long enough to notice that the knocking has stopped. Maybe the zombies have paused to listen in to the fighting. Jesse asks “Mom, what’s a prig?” and Mom mutters something like, “I’ll tell you later.” She glances over at me with a sober look. It’s almost as if she’s reading my mind because she’s turned her attention away from the catfight to the stock-still doors. I can feel her concern over the pause in activity even as she tries to hide it. Naked’s attention is also fixed on the doors, and I can hear the beginnings of a low growl in her throat. I’m worried too, even though I should be relieved they’re not knocking anymore or trying to get in. I think I can see what Mom’s concentrating on because if I look really hard I can see that the light between the cracks in the doors has been blocked out by something. Are they looking in, watching as well as listening? How can they even see us when most of their eyes are gone?

  I turn my attention back to KC and Nadia as their voices rise in volume. “Those doors can’t hold forever, not with the weight of so many zombies against them!” KC shouts at Nadia. “We’ve got a better barrier between us and them on the roof! There’s a tent the soldiers left behind up there and it’s really sturdy. We’ve got more exit points, more places to run if we have to. In here we’re just sitting ducks! The Infected’s methods are evolving faster and faster—what if they figure out how to create a poisonous gas from what’s left in the chemistry lab and the cleaning closet?” We all stiffen at this thought. “What if they set the school on fire and smoke us out? And how else are we going to signal someone? If a rescue plane flies overhead, how will they see us? All they’ll see is a school surrounded by zombies with open doors. They’ll give up on finding anyone alive and fly on.”

  “Then send the old lady and what’s-his-name up to the roof—they managed to survive these things, they can stay up there and signal for help.” Dorothy gives Nadia a look that is out of place with her cute little granny image. In fact, she looks like a harpy that wants to take Nadia’s face off, but Nadia doesn’t notice. “Besides,” she snarls “Is the roof fireproof all of the sudden? We burn here or we burn there. What’s the difference?”

  “I know that!” KC snaps back. “But we can fashion some kind of makeshift bridge to the top of the walls and the watchtowers! They’re fireproof, right? And they’re higher than the roof… and the Infected haven’t been able to figure a way up to them yet.” KC’s making this up as she goes, making her sound less and less confident.

  “If they’re so smart, they’ll just find a ladder or something to get to the top of the wall.”

  “Then we’ll push them right back down! Didn’t you pay attention to the medieval siege part of history class? Oh that’s right, you didn’t need to, because your mummy and daddy would make sure you wouldn’t ever have to work for a living.” Okay, that’s a bit of a low blow, maybe I should say something…

  “Hey, I’m more than just a pretty face! I contribute!” Nadia says this while pouting, her bottom lip sticking out just enough to be cute but not far enough to make her look like a monkey.

/>   KC sighs with frustration. “Nadia, when you’re with us it’s like having one less brain in the room.”

  Nadia looks like she wants to throw up… on KC. Sarah whispers to Jesse, “I don’t like it when those two fight. I don’t trust Nadia, and I don’t think she knows what she’s talking about so I don’t want her to win…”

  “…but it’s not good news when KC wins either.” Jesse finishes.

  Doom follows this right up with “It doesn’t matter which one of them wins, I mean, which one of them is right, because in the end, we all lose.”

  I wish Doom hadn’t said that because it’s made Sarah retreat into that far-away place in her mind. You can tell by the vacant look in her eyes.

  Nadia’s cover-girl face contorts into a mask of rage. “I’m sick of you, Queen of the Nerds! You think you’re smarter than me because you can spit out statistics every now and then? You think you’re a better survivor because you’ve made a zombie kill? You only pulled that off because of your boyfriend’s help!”

  KC lowers her voice but not her animosity. “Word of advice” she says darkly to Nadia. “You may think you’re pretty, but jealousy doesn’t look good on anyone.”

  That’s the last straw for Nadia. Her face turns red and then she lunges at KC. She knocks her right onto her back and starts clawing at her chest. At least that’s what it looks like she’s doing until she pulls something from inside KC’s jacket and then holds it up high for everyone to see. Kaboom pulls Nadia off of KC and onto her feet. “You guys all think she’s so clever but she’s not! This—“she holds the book up a little higher “is where she’s getting her information!”

  Now it’s KC’s turn to lunge for Nadia. “That’s mine. Give it back!” She must be really upset because she actually looks like she’s going to cry. That’s not like her; she eats lightweights like Nadia for breakfast. But Nadia jumps up onto the stage away from KC and starts thumbing through the book. “I knew it! A lot of what you’ve been saying this past month are things Ghost would have said…this is his diary, isn’t it?” KC hops up onto the stage with her but Nadia scrambles up onto a lone chair to keep the book just out of her reach. KC starts jumping up and down making futile swipes at the book.

  “It doesn’t matter what it is, he left it for me!” KC takes another swing at the book but Nadia’s as swift as she is small and she moves it behind her back before KC’s fingers can close in on it.

  “We need this book! We all need to learn how to survive—why should you keep these secrets to yourself?”

  I’ve had enough of this. I’m up on the stage, and Mom’s close behind. KC jumps for the book again, Nadia pulls it away again, but I’m tall enough to take it out of her hand in one quick motion. Kaboom is at Nadia’s side ready to make a play for the book if she wants it back, but I fix both of them with a solid stare as I hand it back to KC. “The book was left by Ghost for KC. It belongs to her.”

  “Is it a diary?” I wonder to myself. It looks like a thicker version of those black-marbled composition books we had to buy in grade school. It doesn’t have Ghost’s name on the front cover—whatever his name really was—instead it has Notes From A Necrophobe written across it. It looks like a hastily scribbled addition, like Ghost had left it blank and finally added a title after his experiences.

  Kaboom helps a deflated Nadia off the chair and turns his attention to KC and the book. “What’s a ‘necrophobe’?” he asks with genuine interest.

  Mom answers before KC does. “It’s someone who suffers from necrophobia, the fear of dead bodies.”

  “Huh,” says Doom. “So I guess Ghost was afraid of something after all.”

  Kaboom wades back into the conversation asking, “Does it have any suggestions of how we can get out of our current mess?”

  “I think I’ve pretty much shared everything that I’ve found in here,” KC says with a sigh. “There’s only a couple things left that you guys might not know about.”

  “Like what?” asks Doom, clearly intrigued.

  “Well, there’s something in here about antibiotics that I think was written by Eric instead of Ghost.”

  “Who’s Eric?” asks Nemesis.

  “He was Ghost’s grandfather. He’s the one who started this book and then passed it on to Ghost before he died…”

  “…of old age,” my mother adds quickly. “So what did Eric have to say about antibiotics?”

  “He wrote that all the food and water and shelter in the world was not going to save us if we pick up an infection.” KC opens up the book near the beginning and reads:

  When an infection strikes the body after an apocalyptic event you won’t be able to pop down to your local Walgreens or Rite Aid to keep illness at bay; therefore antibiotics are a must in a proper seventy-two-hour kit; otherwise one can die from the smallest scratch. But where can you get these antibiotics? You need a prescription to acquire them, and it is not currently possible to ask your doctor to prescribe a year’s worth of antibiotics in case the world suffers a catastrophic event in the near future.

  “If you did say that to a doctor they would have prescribed something a bit stronger and anti-psychotic instead,” Nemesis mumbles under her breath.

  KC continues to read. However, one can simply pop in to the local PetsMart and pick up antibiotics that are used to disinfect fish tanks. It’s the same product and has the same result.

  “I already knew that!” Doom says with disappointment. “My dad taught me that when I was little and we each had antibiotics in our cases. Well, at least I did until the soldiers took it away.”

  The more KC read, the more tense Mom looked. I don’t think she took this into consideration when we were packing our kits. We were so smug with our bug-out bags just like we were smug with our food storage and yet we were missing a crucial ingredient that could spell the difference between life and death. Imagine getting this far only to be felled by an infected pinprick! The thought made my stomach churn, but whatever it was doing to me was nothing compared to what it was doing to my mother. She looked so distressed and worried that I decided to change the subject. “What else is in there?”

  KC flips the pages over until she’s near the end of the book. “There’s something about using liquid nitrogen as a weapon, but Ghost didn’t get a chance to finish that section.”

  “Liquid nitrogen?” asks Mouse, clearly confused.

  “Wait a minute!” shouts Doom. “I know what Ghost was talking about!”

  “Where would we get liquid nitrogen? The chemistry lab?” inquires Nemesis.

  “No,” Mom says with an “Aha!” light in her eyes. “The janitor’s closet.”

  Everyone turns to her and looks at her like she’s gone crazy. Well, everyone except Doom that is, he just nods his head in agreement. I want to ask her if she’s feeling all right but instead I ask, “Um, why would you say that?”

  “Because that’s what they used to get the gum off stadium seats and from under desks.”

  “She’s totally right!” says Doom excitedly. His words trip over each other in their haste to get out. “Ghost told me the same thing! One of the last things I remember doing with him was filling a backpack with little aerosol cans of liquid nitrogen and I asked what they were for and he said they were for getting rid of gum and I told him I didn’t think anyone cared about gum under desks anymore and he said he had an idea of how they can be used for weapons. He didn’t tell me his idea, though, I think he was afraid I’d try it out myself or something.” Doom takes a deep breath and looks around for approval. Instead he gets a bunch of blank stares. We’re impressed that the school has cans of liquid nitrogen, but without Ghost, we can’t be sure how best to use them.

  “Could you and Houston bring them down to the stage so we can have a look at them please?” my mother asks patiently. “We might be able to figure out what Ghost intended to do with them.”

  Doom dashes up the stairs to the clubhouse, closely followed by Kaboom muttering, “Let me help.” Though I
think what he really wants to do is remove himself from the KC-Nadia War of the Wills.

  KC starts up her earlier argument again by saying, “We should all just go up there.”

  And Nadia counters with, “Only you and Doom are paranoid enough to believe we need to go up there now…” but Mom’s not going to let them carry on any further.

  “All right, I’ve heard enough. I need all of you to go through the packs and only pick out what we need. You know the deal: food, water, raingear, emergency blankets. No trinkets or bric-or-brac. And then…wait, what’s that sound?”

  We all stop to hear what she’s hearing. Is it the sound of shuffling showing that the dead are on the move again? No. Is it the sound of them scratching for gaps in the door? No. Is it the sound of the door groaning under the pressure of a hundred zombies pushing against it?

  No, that’s not it either. Our shoulders slump in tandem when we realize what it is, except for Nadia that is. Her shoulders remain high and haughty. She’s the only person in the room not bummed out by what we hear. She gives KC a contemptuous yet triumphant look and with a smirk in her voice announces: “It’s rain! Now we have to stay indoors.” Her veneer of loveliness slips as she sticks her tongue out at KC and announces, “I win!”

  KC

  What a wenchbag. Nadia’s won the battle, but she won’t win the war. It’s sad. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s also inevitable because I know that Ghost is, I mean was, right: our last stand will be on the roof. I can tell the others feel it too, because they’re already making a move to get up there, albeit reluctantly. I’m with Nadia on one thing. It’s cold enough as it is and it will be even more unbearable up there. I’m not about to admit that to her though.

  Mouse and I are off in our own corner. We’re finding it hard to go through these packs; the stuff inside kind of plays with our emotions. It’s the personal items that get to us, the proof that each pack represents the loss of its owner. I feel like I’m getting to know each of the fallen through what they chose to take with them. Mouse is even scribbling their names—if they’re written or sewed into the label—down in her book of remembrance along with a few of the nonsurvival items in their bag. We don’t know their ages or what they looked like, but if we list the things that they thought were precious enough to take with them, their loved ones may be able to identify them and start the process of letting go. Of course, if we’re not rescued soon they’re as good as forgotten. As we will be.