Notes from a Necrophobe

by T. C. Armstrong

  “It’s not that hard to figure out when you have access to Google and Ancestry.com,” he says with a conspiratorial smile. At least that’s what I think he says; I’m mostly reading lips at this point.

  “Then it’s only fair you let me know what your real name is. Your first name. I know what your last name is from your book. So tell me, what does the ‘W’ in ‘W. Benedict’ stand for?”

  His smile falters, just a little. He places his warm smooth lips to my ear and says, “Walter.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nods, seriously.

  “I like Ghost better,” I say, not caring whether he hears me or not as I lay my head on his chest, comforted by the rapid-fire beating of his heart.

  HOUSTON

  I’m sitting here among my family and friends, warm at last, safe at last, and I can hardly believe we survived this. Days ago I felt just as responsible for everyone’s lives as Mom or Mr. Cromwell did. Moments ago I was ready to surrender myself to whatever was coming to take us, and now we’re about to fly off to a new life. And I know that despite the scars we now bear, it will be a better life.

  At least that what I’m thinking as we try to take off, but something’s got a hold of us and is tilting the aircraft back down to the roof. Whatever it is, it jerks hard enough on the helicopter’s runner to make it bank sharply and makes my mother, who had removed her harness so she could help pull KC and I in earlier, tumble right out.

  RENEE

  I fall out of the aircraft before I even have a chance to finish the thought, “What new fresh Hell is this?!” I hit the roof with such force my breath is knocked right out of me. I look up at the frightened faces of my family looking down from the helicopter and there, holding on to the runner while trying to reach into the cab, is what’s left of Kaboom. And behind the helicopter are more of them. More and more and more of them, and not just behind the copter, but all around, crawling against its airstream as they try to reach us and pull us all down. It seems our pile of dead wasn’t the only pile going on around the school; it was simply the first to reach us.

  I’m not scared. I’m not shocked. I’m angry! We’ve come too far to die now! I wave the others away and yell, “Take off! Take off before they can get a hold of you!”

  And then as sudden as the drama started, it’s over. In a ballet of perfect timing I watch Houston slice off Kaboom’s arm with Grant’s machete in one motion while at the same time Grant, his feet held fast by the others, leans out and grabs me by the hand. In a split second, the helicopter has taken off, too quickly for me to be pulled fully into the cab, but fast enough to leave the roof before it’s overrun with the Infected.

  I hang there by Grant’s hand, never taking my eyes off of his. It’s the briefest of moments before he and I are hauled up inside with the others, but it feels like an eternity. Not in a bad way, in a romantic, slow-motion-bouncing-through-the-fields-on-a-summer’s-day-into-your-beloved’s-outstretched-arms way. Except in my case it was me being held fast by the love of my life, the wind blowing the hair back from my face, the sun setting in front of me, and the bone-shaking force of explosions behind me.

  I’m securely belted back in my seat by the time I see the final blinding flash as everything that ever belonged to us or threatened us is turned to ash.

  JESSE

  I was hoping that when we got back to the real world I could have whatever I wanted to eat and drink, like great big scoops of ice cream with hot fudge sauce dripping all over it and the biggest mug of hot chocolate ever with a mound of real whipped cream and chocolate shavings on top of it, but I didn’t get it, not at first. Instead we were given this nasty stuff called Atmit that was like watered down cream of wheat and had no taste to it. They told me my body wasn’t used to normal foods yet and I’d just get sick and throw the treats back up, so we needed to eat this Atmit stuff until our bodies got used to food again. Oh yeah, there was that, and there was the stupid shot as well. We had to get these Rabies vaccinations so we won’t get infected by the Infected. I don’t know what the point is, ‘cause our new home keeps us safe from the rain and the zombies.

  The good thing is, I did get that Scooby-doo sized ice cream sundae, and so did Sarah, and so did the rest of us. Even better than that, once we got out of the hospital we got to move into those really nice apartments Dad told us about when he was trapped overseas. There are glass ceilings covering the outdoors everywhere so we can run and play outside all we want. There’s an indoor swimming pool—with salt water of course—and I get to have a bigger room than KC with a TV that has Cartoon Network and everything.

  There are also high walls with army guys on them. These soldiers are different to those other soldiers ‘cause they have names and they talk and smile at you and they share their food with you too. Some of them will even tell you stories about their own kids. They seem so nice, but the problem is, they still scare me. Ghost told me these are real soldiers, not the bad guys who were pretending to be soldiers at the high school. He said those soldiers at the school were a new branch formed right after The Lost Day so that there would be a part of the forces that were specialized in taking care of zombies. He said that some of them got in big trouble ‘cause they turned on the government and tried to take over. The guards here are from the regular army and Marines. I trust Ghost, but I’m not ready to trust the new soldiers just yet.

  Actually now that I think about it, the bestest thing about being here, better than the swimming pool or my new room or my new friends or being able to talk to Ghost again is that Naked and Killer are here. Ghost said they showed up here and helped Dad and him argue the case for rescuing us. Nobody believed anyone could still be alive out there, especially since the last message they had from the bad soldiers was that they had to leave the refugee center because the place got overrun with Infected and everyone else had died. Dad identified Naked and Ghost identified Killer and they pointed out that they came from the refugee center. If they had survived, others could have survived. Until then they were having a hard time getting the army to give them a tank or a helicopter or a gun or anything to come and find us. Ghost said maybe we should start calling Naked “Lassie.” I don’t know what a Lassie is, but whatever it is, it’ll never be as funny a name as “Naked.”

  I try not to think about the people who did die because it makes my insides hurt. I do sometimes think of Nadia because she was right about one thing—we’re famous! We keep being asked to do these interviews on TV and for those people who write blogs. They keep asking questions, questions, and more questions. How did we survive the Arctic front that swept in? How did we survive being attacked by hundreds and hundreds of Infected? How did we keep up hope when there was no hope left?

  Even Sarah got her IZs label out there. She kept using it in her interviews, and now everyone’s using it. I have to admit, it sounds a lot better than calling those things zombies or the Infected. Sarah and Mr. Cromwell came up with it together, and now they’re living together in an apartment of their own. Mr. Cromwell officially adopted her, but I don’t know why he had to ‘cause Sarah would never live with anyone else. She still can’t sleep unless he’s around to watch over her.

  Mr. Cromwell was also right about the government not abandoning us. Not only were they told that we were dead and there was nothing left at the high school refugee center ‘cept a bunch of Infected, but there were loads more of those bad soldiers than were at our center and the good soldiers actually had to fight the bad ones when they turned on them and tried to take over the government. “A military coup” is what Ghost called it. It took a while for the government to put them down, although a lot of them simply escaped and are still out there somewhere. I think.

  Mouse is famous for her book, and we found out that some of those people in it were not forgotten, just missing. A lot of people turned to Mouse’s book to find out what happened to their friends and relatives. I don’t know why they would do it, I wouldn’t want to know that someone I loved died, but Mom say
s that not knowing is worse than knowing.

  KC and Ghost are famous for their book too. It’s been published into a handbook that’s been bought by pretty much everybody. They tell me Notes From A Necrophobe is the number one book on some chart. Because it made money, Ghost has his own cottage on the grounds. At first I felt sorry for him living all alone instead of in the apartments like everyone else, but he’s only alone when he sleeps because he and KC are with each other the rest of the time, grossing me out by holding hands and giving each other gooey looks that I can’t understand. At first I thought KC would get in trouble because Dad always said she couldn’t date or have a boyfriend until she’s sixteen, but it turns out, she turned sixteen while we were in the refugee center. It was hard to keep track of those things when we didn’t have any calendars or digital devices to tell us what day it was.

  Nemesis now lives with her family who had escaped to another, better refugee center. They’ve been transferred to a different compound to us, but she seems happy and we’re always facebooking or texting or Skyping each other. She needs to know every day that we’re okay, and she’s trying to convince her family to move to our compound.

  Mouse and Doom were not comfortable living on their own, so they were quickly adopted. Actually, there are so many parents who lost their kids and wanted them that there was almost a battle to see who they could go live with. In the end they chose this nice couple that I don’t know too much about except they’re good at making Doom calm. Their new parents moved to the same compound that Nemesis lives in, which is too bad. It feels kind of weird to be away from them after spending so much time with them.

  Houston’s famous for all the heroic stuff he did, and we’re good at telling stories about him. Everyone wants to be around Hou, especially the girls. I used to tease him about that until he told me that he’s not interested in those girls ‘cause he has a crush on someone from the Dumb Luck Club. Well, the only girls he could have a crush on are Mouse and Nemesis, so now I tease him about that. I hope one day he’ll tell me which one it is.

  Mom and Dad never let each other out of their sight and they’re famous too. Dad’s famous for how he managed to mobilize an army to save us—along with Ghost of course—and Mom’s famous for keeping us safe as long as she did. Both of them don’t seem to care about all the attention they’re getting. They’re just happy to be together again.

  So this is where we are, as close to a normal life as we can get. We’re back in school, which is kind of the same as before but with one big difference: Houston is the most popular guy there. We’re back to doing chores, we’re back to me and KC squabbling over tiny things of no importance, and we’re back to swimming and walking Naked and living with a Killer. I’m so happy to be here. I’m so happy for all that we have right now, and I’m looking forward to the day when I no longer have nightmares about what happened to our house and the Mclean High School Refugee Center. I hope the past never catches up to us.

  Wait, that’s a dumb thought. I mean, look where we are now. I’m sitting on our big comfy couch watching a funny movie about aliens with my family and Naked’s at my feet and Killer is in my lap instead of KC’s and he’s purring loudly and letting me pet him. So as the nursery rhyme goes: All is well.

  KILLER

  …But I’ve got a secret.

  Acknowledgements

  Scheve, Tom. "How Body Farms Work" 18 June 2008. HowStuffWorks.com. 07 May 2014.

  Bass, William. Death’s Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales. New York, The Berkley Publishing Group, October 5, 2003.

  Yancey, Diane, Body Farms. SanDiego, Lucent Books Inc, July 2009.

  Hallcox, Jarrett. Bodies We’ve Buried: Inside the National Forensic Academy, The World’s Top CSI Training School. New York, Berkley Books, 2006.

  Biography of a Corpse. Jefferson, Jon, National Geographic, 2003.

  http://crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/bill_bass/9.html Ramsland, Katherine. “The Body Farm,” criminal minds & methods.

  http://voiceofrussia.com/uk/news/2014_01_02/ Lagnado, Alice. “What’s Really Inside Lake Vostok,” 2 Jan 2014.

  http://exohuman.com/wordpress/2011/02/whats-under-lake-vostok/ Green, Duncan, “What’s Under Lake Vostok?” January 7, 2011.

  http://nature.com/news/russian-scientist-defends-lake-vostok-life-claims-1.12578 Schiermeier, Quirin, “Russian Scientist Defends Lake Vostok Life Claims,” 12 March, 2013.

  Nadis, Steve, “Alien Worlds On Earth.” Discover. (March 2014): p. 45, Kalmbach Publishing Company.

  About the Author

  Tina Clark-Armstrong received a degree in German and Art History from Brigham Young University in 1993, then spent the following year working for Hyatt Hotels on Capital Hill in Washington DC. She lived the next fourteen years in London while sitting on the board of corporate finance company Logic Systems Management. She began lobbying for a change in aviation law in 2002 in response to her husband’s death in an L-39 ex-fighter jet and was able to successfully change an edict that had not been updated since World War II. She prefers to spend her time exploring Europe, Africa, the Far East and the Middle East. She has occupied herself on her travels with skydiving, mountain climbing and cage diving with sharks and crocodiles (though not at the same time). The side effect of her adventures is a writing style that aims to both entertain and make the heart race.

  Mrs. Clark-Armstrong moved back to the D.C. area in 2009. She currently lives in Mclean, Virginia with her husband Russell Armstrong, her children James, Katerina and Jessica, her cats Nemesis and Noodle and her dog Naked. She spends her downtime writing the sequels to Notes From A Necrophobe and giving tours at the Library of Congress.