“Boy, did she ever. Listen to this.” Jesse’s voice brims with the humor I know well, and I’m relieved any hurt has been replaced by amusement. “She said she wanted to make me jealous, so that I knew she could leave me at any time. Also, she said if we made up, I could only practice guitar when she wasn’t around, since it felt like I loved it more than her. Oh, and did I want to move in together?”
I cover my mouth to stifle my laugh. “That is crazy. Like, crazy crazy.”
“Right? I thought she was semi-normal up until then. We weren’t even serious.”
My heart soars at that last bit of information. “Silly girl. Like you’d ever love anyone more than your guitar,” I say, and his teeth gleam in the moonlight. “Well, let’s hope the next one doesn’t do that.”
“I’m done for a long while. Relationships aren’t worth all that stress, you know?”
My heart takes a nosedive. I conceal it with a joke. “Pretty sure you know I know. Come on over to the unserious side. We have cookies and blissfully empty beds, when we want them.” Jesse laughs softly, though he doesn’t reply. “I thought I was crazy, but Super Bitch was a whole new level of bananas.”
“You’re not crazy. I don’t think, anyway. Obviously, I’m not a good judge of who’s crazy and who isn’t at present. What did your psych major say?”
It said I have father issues. Intimacy issues. “I don’t think it matters anymore,” I say aloud. “But I’m not Super Bitch, so that’s a win.”
Jesse looks in my direction, though I don’t know how much he can see. “How about you? That guy you were with?”
“He wasn’t anyone.” I close my eyes. Poor Nick. “That sounds horrible. He was someone. He was Nick, and he went to school with me. I was giving him a ride home. He grew up in Eugene.”
“Wait, Nick Grundy? He went to your school.”
“Yeah. I forgot he said he knew you when we were talking in the car.”
“He was a good guy.”
“I figured that out too late. But he seemed like it.” Tears fill the space under my eyelids, then leak out. I wish I’d left Nick on the side of the road. He would’ve had a better chance.
“Hey.” Jesse’s fingers brush my hair. “You didn’t know what was going to happen.”
“But I was shitty to him before that. When my dad called, Nick said he’d come to the house. He was so nice about it, telling me it would be okay. I thought I’d apologize after, but I couldn’t even do that because he was dead. Because of me.”
The words rush out along with tears. I can’t apologize to Nick, but I’ll try not to do it again. My issues don’t matter anymore, I decide, because I will be different. I am different. I guess losing people you love has a way of doing that.
I wipe my face on Holly’s sheet. “God, are you tired of me crying in front of you yet?”
“Have you met my mom? I think she secretly loves when people cry in front of her. I’m well-trained in the role of cry facilitator.”
It’s true. His hand still rests on my hair, brushing it softly. I want it there all night. To superglue it to my head. “Your mom is the best at that. But who do you think does it for her?”
Jesse’s hand stops before it resumes stroking. “A few years ago, I would’ve said my dad. Now I don’t know. Shit, that’s depressing.”
“I’m sorry about your dad. About all of it.”
Jesse leans his head back. “Yeah, me too. I want him to be okay, and I want to punch him. My mom doesn’t know, but I heard him say something not so nice to her a while ago, and then I started listening more. It was just little things, like he’d ask her about a client and then ask if she got his digits. Or joke that she was looking for a date when she was dressed up for an open house. But you could tell he wasn’t joking, you know?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. It would devastate Holly to hear this, and I understand why he kept it from her.
Jesse swallows. “It wasn’t all the time, I don’t think, but if you…if you could see her face when he does it.” He inhales shakily, then blows out a breath. “I started coming down more just to make sure she was okay. I said I was playing with some guys I knew, that we were thinking of starting a band after school ended. Then I’d go to the movies or something when I was supposed to be with them.”
This. This is why I like him, no matter his hair or his flatulence or anything else: his heart. “I don’t blame you. Your mom doesn’t deserve that.”
“I know. I was going to see how things were this weekend, then talk to her about it. I didn’t know if she’d be mad, but I couldn’t watch it anymore.”
His voice is tight with anger, maybe with unshed tears. After a few moments of deliberation, in which I decide it’s stupid to worry that simple comfort will reveal my true feelings, I lay my hand over where his sits on my hair. He runs his fingers along mine, keeps them there lightly, and my entire body thrills at the touch of our fingertips. Fingertips. I might explode if he ever touched more of me, but I’m more than willing to take my chances.
“She’d never be mad at you for that,” I say.
It’s the truth, though she’d be mad at herself for letting him see. Rose will discuss your issues until the end of time—we had many deep conversations during my teen years—but she barely speaks about her own. I knew about Ethan’s addiction, but only as much as Holly did, and I never would’ve guessed there was more based on Rose’s demeanor.
“Just don’t tell Holly.” Jesse pauses. “It might not matter anymore.”
Sorrow laces his voice. For his mom, for his dad. “I won’t. You can trust me.”
“I know.”
He squeezes my hand before he returns to his sleeping bag. I wish he hadn’t let go. In this room, with the moonlight and what he’s told me, things feel different. I’m an adult in age, but I haven’t felt like one very often. I haven’t had to be one—as long as I had decent grades, my responsibilities were pretty slim. I was lucky.
No more, though. Just weeks away, with the zombies dead, the world might be unrecognizable. If it’s spread as Dad thinks, our lives will be about trying to move on from the deaths and destruction. There might not be a government, or even many people, and two semesters of psych are worthless when it comes to finding or making food, or any of the other things we’ll need to survive.
I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling. I’ll do my best to get ready for that future, whatever it brings.
25
Rose
Tom’s house smells slightly of death. He moves into the kitchen and tries the dry faucet before he fills two glasses with water from a pitcher on the counter. Canned soup and crackers sit nearby, and a couple of grocery sacks rest on the floor. I guzzle half my water. That was over three minutes of running, and I feel it in every bit of my body. I don’t know how much longer I had in me, honestly, and I’m glad we stopped.
“There’s more water,” Tom says. “We filled containers before we left.”
“I’m good for now.” I peek through the opening between the kitchen curtains. The zombies announce their arrival and come into view a moment later. A few wander down the driveway, though they do so aimlessly. “They didn’t see where we went. I think we’re okay.”
I sip at my water. Now that I can breathe, relief floods in. If I had to rate my life in terrifying moments, watching my children surrounded by zombies with almost no chance of escape blows every other moment out of the water.
“It worked,” I say. “Thank God the kids got away.” Tom, staring at the floor by the sink, doesn’t answer. “Are you all right?”
“That’s where I did it,” he murmurs.
“Did what?”
“When Sheila…turned. That’s where I took a knife and…”
I look down at the tile, which he must have cleaned—an awful thought—and then up at Tom, who still watches the floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that was…” I trail off when I can’t find a non-gruesome way to end the sentence.
“She’s
upstairs. Jeremy’s outside, and—” All six-plus feet of Tom begins to shake, and he brings his hands to his face as a sob breaks through. I want to comfort him, but I’m not sure he wants comfort. Not Tom, who eschews every attempt at friendliness or sympathy.
“Clara might as well be gone, too,” he says between ragged breaths. “She hates me, and I don’t blame her.”
I feel even worse about what I said yesterday. I know Tom loves Clara. I only want him to show her, precisely because she doesn’t hate him. Not yet, anyway. I cross the tile and touch his arm. “Clara doesn’t hate you. She loves you.”
“I keep fucking it up, Rose. Every time I tell myself I won’t, I do it again.”
My eyes flood at the raw anguish in his voice. Tom’s words remind me of Ethan, of his promises to change, but they feel different. I’d wager my life that adult Tom has never cried like this in front of someone. Sheila once mentioned she’d only ever seen a tear or two out of him at his mom’s funeral.
“But she’s not gone,” I say. “She wants you with her. If you can’t see it, I can. All you have to do is let her in.” Tom shakes his head in a hopeless motion, as if he doesn’t know where to begin. I give his arm a gentle squeeze. “Tell her you love her. Tell her you miss Sheila and Jeremy, too. Hug her. Cry with her. The rest will fall into place, I promise.”
His breath hitches a few more times, thick fingers still covering his face, but he nods. It’s possible I’ve never seen someone more in need of a hug, or simple kindness, than Tom at this moment. “I should warn you,” I say, “I can’t be this close to a crying person and not hug them. It’s coming any minute now, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
He sobs out a laugh and sniffs, but he doesn’t refuse. I wrap my arms around him as much as I can, since he isn’t what one would call tiny. Slowly, incrementally, Tom relaxes. His hands drop from his face and his arms come around my shoulders. I breathe deep, hear his heart slow. I once read that a twenty second hug has a therapeutic effect, releasing oxytocin and calming the mind. Twenty seconds is an awkwardly long time to hug someone you don’t know well, but I hold on and envision all the ire leaving him. When his grip lessens after a minute, I pull away. “I’ll let you go now. Don’t want to freak you out.”
The skin under his eyes is puffy, and he looks tired, older, but his lips move up the tiniest bit. “Thanks.”
“Never underestimate the power of a hug.” I dip my hand into my shirt collar and pull a tissue from my bra, then pass it to him. “Don’t worry, it’s clean.”
Tom stares as if I’ve handed him a Martian. “You honestly just pulled a tissue from your bra. Are you my grandma?”
I cover my mouth to keep in my laugh, then double over when that doesn’t work. My shoulders buck while I try to quiet myself, knowing my hysterics are partly a release of tension from our close call. After a minute, I calm down enough to straighten, though my chest jumps with silent giggles. “Sometimes I forget what’s normal in civilized society. I guess that’s not, huh?”
“It is if you’re eighty.”
I suppress another crazed laugh. Tom watches me, eyes glinting with amusement and tissue balled in his hand. Maybe it’s odd to stick tissues in your bra, but he used it. “The kids call them boob tissues,” I say. “Aside from the fact that I’m allergic to Oregon, someone always needed a tissue when they were little, so I started sticking a couple in my bra. They come in handy.”
Tom lifts the tissue as if to say touché. I smile and walk to my water glass, then take a gulp and brace myself. Avoiding confrontation is my schtick, and bringing it up again is never easy, especially when it’s to apologize. “I’m sorry for what I said yesterday. I know you love Clara, and I didn’t want you to leave. I only wanted you to understand.”
“You were right.”
“Those are my three favorite words,” I say. Tom’s sniff is more of a laugh, though when I turn, he watches me somberly. “But I took my anger about other stuff out on you, and it wasn’t fair.”
Tom’s shoulders lift and fall. “Maybe, but you were right. I’m sorry I made things harder for everyone.”
“Well then, stop doing it already,” I say in a fake exasperated voice.
He rolls his eyes like a teenager. “Fine. Geez.”
Multiple jokes in one day. It might be a record.
A check out the sliding glass doors reveals zombies in the woods. While we wait for them to leave, we sit on the couch, eat crackers, and drink warm beer from the fridge. Tom turned an easy chair to face the wall, though not before I saw the dark stain on the seat cushion. He glances to the stairs every so often, face strained.
“Do you want to go upstairs?” I ask. “I’ll come with you.”
He shakes his head quickly. “I don’t want to see her now.”
“I could check first. I—”
“No,” he says quietly. “I’ve thought about burying her and Jeremy. And Nick.” I cock my head in question. “Clara’s friend. I had to do it, but…” He gazes at the stairs and wipes a hand on the knee of his pants, then switches his beer to his other hand and wipes that one, as though erasing the things he’s done.
“I’ll help you.”
“It’s too dangerous now. I don’t know when it won’t be.” He finishes his beer and stands. “Another?”
“Sure. I want to be drunk when they break in and eat us.”
Tom arches an eyebrow and leaves for the kitchen. When he returns, I ask, “Do you think everyone is okay?”
He hands me a bottle and sits, elbows on knees. “They’re fine. They didn’t have far to go, and the road looked clear in that direction. What could have happened?”
“They could’ve gone into a ditch, been thrown from the back, and knocked unconscious.” I can picture it so clearly—Jesse and Holly lying in the grass, unresponsive until they wake to a nightmare too late to get away. “Or, I don’t know, maybe the truck’s gas tank exploded.”
Tom chokes on his beer. “Where the hell did you get that one? Why would it explode?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes tanks explode.”
“Not very often. What else have you got in that head of yours?”
“That’s it for now.”
“The tank is not going to explode, and they didn’t run into a ditch. Is Mitch a good driver?” Tom asks. I nod. “Then they’re fine.”
I let out my breath. He has to be right. The exploding gas tank is not one of my more rational ideas, and I’ve had some doozies. “When the kids were little, I wouldn’t let them have helium balloons in their rooms at night.”
“Why?” Tom asks.
“You know how they float around the room? I was scared it would dance its way over while they were sleeping, the dangling ribbon would sit on their necks, and they would turn over and accidentally strangle themselves.”
Tom leans back and pinches the bridge of his nose. “That’s just plain crazy.”
I giggle. The second beer is kicking in. My house is full of alcohol, but we’ve restrained ourselves from drinking more than a few ounces for fear it’ll be the moment zombies come through the fence. After this afternoon’s events, I don’t care—I need a drink.
“And I wouldn’t let Jesse wear hooded sweatshirts, the kind without a zipper, to kindergarten. I was afraid the hood might get caught on a hook, no one would notice, and he would hang himself.”
Tom’s incredulous expression pronounces me insane, and then he starts to chuckle. “What else?”
“I cut their grapes until they were six. Holly told me, the first week of kindergarten, that I wasn’t allowed to cut her grapes for school because she wasn’t a baby. And I used to bring them into bed with me when they were sick because I was sure they were going to choke to death on phlegm. And, when I was a teenager, I made up a secret kiss signal with my dad so I’d be able to tell if it was an impostor pretending to be him on the phone.”
“Was Sam a spy or something?”
“He was an English teacher.”
“I used to tell Ethan my crazy thoughts. If I said them out loud, I could let them go. I haven’t done that in a while.” I watch my fingers tap my bottle impatiently, as though everything I’ve kept inside wants out. “I’ve been expecting him to die for years now. Maybe with a needle dangling out of his arm or in a car wreck because he nodded out. We were so disconnected it was like he did die at some point, and I mourned him then. I just…shut down. I don’t know when it happened, exactly.”
“It makes sense to me,” Tom says. “There’s only so long you can live that way before it changes you.”
“It’s true, but it sucks.”
“It does.”
I get the feeling he’s speaking from experience, and I wonder with whom. Having this conversation with Tom could be weird, but he’s easy to talk to when he actually talks. We listen to the noises outside while his eyes flick to the stairs again and again.
To distract him, I ask, “How do you think this virus happened?”
“I don’t know. But I can tell you what I read the night before. I was reading about the virus online, and you know how it goes, clicking from one link to the next, and I ended up on Reddit. A few people said it was us. The U.S. government. Some military weapon allowing soldiers to continue fighting after death. They said the project was called Born Again.”
He frowns dismissively, and I say, “But you don’t believe that.”
“Seems far-fetched they’d test it out in the real world, especially since the soldiers would be just as likely to eat their own side as the other. As a bioweapon, maybe you could plant it in a country somehow. Other people said it mutated, jumped from an animal to us via a parasite. The Borna Disease Virus lives in the nervous system, so it could be why they still walk even if they’re dead. Have you ever seen those videos of the zombie ants?”
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 20