Damage in an Undead Age

by A. M. Geever

  “The last thing that Anna said to me was, ‘Memorial services are for the living. I’m an atheist, but if you think it will help then have one.’ Anna believed this life was it, and that once she pulled that trigger, there was nothing more.”

  The sobs of the assembly in the open field on the Boys’ Home campus got louder. Doug whispered in Miranda’s ear.

  “I wish he had let me do this. I may be packing it in, but I know how to do a funeral. This is dreadful.”

  Rich continued. “I was raised Methodist. I try to be a good person and live my life in a way that people know I’m a Christian without me having to tell them. I know I fail at it, a lot. The last ten years have tried my faith, but my faith is what gets me through. I think Anna was wrong. I believe I’ll see her again in Heaven because she was the best example of being a Christian that I can think of. The Gospel of John says, ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’”

  Rich stopped speaking. His hand that clutched the paper his eulogy was written on stayed by his side, crumpled in his hand. When he started speaking again, his voice was tight with emotion. He kept wiping tears from his eyes.

  “Anna laid down her life for us. She didn’t care that she was dying. She didn’t care that she wouldn’t be here to see how we fared after this…calamity. She served this community to the bitter end. I was getting uncomfortable with how long she insisted on going, to be honest. But she wasn’t going to let something as annoying as being bitten by a zombie slow her down.”

  That one got a few laughs. Doug’s shoulders dropped down from his ears a little.

  “The best tribute we can make to LO Commander Anna Smith, Full Bird Colonel, United States Air Force, is to continue. Rebuild. And keep LO a place where people help and care about others, whether they’ve been here from the beginning or have just arrived at our door. Because that’s how Anna would want it.”

  Rich walked over to Mathilde, who stood at the front of the crowd with their children. She wrapped him in an embrace as his shoulders started to hitch. Miranda saw Skye, who had also spoken at the service, pat him on the back. Around her, people hugged one another and began to mill around.

  “I need a fucking drink,” Miranda said to Doug.

  “Tell me about it,” Doug muttered. “At least he pulled it out of the bag at the end there.”

  “See you at my place later?”

  Doug nodded. “Yeah. I’ll wait for Skye and we’ll be over.”

  Doug towered over her. He looked thunderstruck.

  “You haven’t talked to him?”

  “I don’t even know where he is,” Miranda said, defensive. She took a step back and shot Skye a beseeching glance.

  “You don’t know where he is?” Doug’s voice became an angry shout. “He was at the service!”

  His blue eyes flashed. Miranda had never seen him so outraged.

  “It’s been three days, Miranda. His brother put a hit on him. I don’t care what you said to each other. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  Miranda took a step back, away from Doug.

  “Honey,” Skye said, her voice placating. She put her hand on his arm, still in a sling. “I can see that you’re upset but—”

  Doug rounded on her. Miranda could see it was taking everything he had to keep his temper in check.

  “Don’t get in the middle of this, Skye. You should go.”

  Skye’s eyes were still red-rimmed and puffy from crying at the memorial service. She looked at Doug for a second, then nodded.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”

  She stood on tiptoe and kissed Doug on the cheek, then whispered something in his ear that Miranda could not hear. She nodded to Miranda. When she reached the door, she looked down at Delilah, hunkered low and looking anxious. She looped her fingers through Delilah’s collar.

  “C’mon, Liley,” Skye said and tugged the dog out the door with her.

  Miranda took the tiny reprieve of Skye’s exit to regroup.

  “Dominic’s always been an asshole,” she said when Skye had shut the townhouse door behind her. “I don’t know why anyone is surprised by this. I always said he’d sell out his own mother.”

  Doug took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. “I don’t care what Dominic is or isn’t,” he said through gritted teeth. “Mario needs you. You remember who he is, right? The man you’re in love with, who you cried over for five goddamned years. I know things are messed up right now, but why on earth aren’t you with him?”

  She looked away from Doug because she couldn’t come up with a good answer. If the situation was reversed, Mario would be here for her, no matter the horrible things they had said to one another. But every time she thought about holding his hand and drying his tears, offering gentle words of consolation, she choked on the anger and hurt that burned in her belly and leaped into her throat. She couldn’t even articulate it, because it was more than just their argument. He must have done something for her to be this angry with him. She didn’t understand it. She didn’t know how, or what, but he had, he must have. And now she was supposed to be there for him?

  “Maybe things are different now.”

  “Is this about the baby?”

  Miranda shook her head. “No! It’s just…”

  “It’s just what?”

  She glared at him, furious, unable to explain or defend herself. Sorry that she had said it so poorly…whatever the hell it was that she had been trying to say. She wanted Doug to shut up and leave her alone. To quit forcing her to defend what she didn’t understand.

  Doug lifted his arm that was broken, then stopped. She knew the gesture. He wanted to scrub the back of his head with his hand, but he couldn’t. Not in a cast that started above his elbow and ended halfway down his fingers. His other arm was in a sling, so he couldn’t use it, either.

  “If you don’t deal with this, it’s going to eat you up inside,” Doug said. “It’s going to ruin everything good in your life.”

  “What good?” she demanded, tears springing to her eyes. “What good things are you talking about, exactly? The family surrounding me? They’re all dead! The friends I’ve left behind, who I couldn’t even bury because it was too dangerous to stay long enough to do it? Everything this world just snuffs out again and again and again, and it’s not even personal, just the way things work now? The man who says he loves me but then leaves me behind? He left us, Doug. He wasn’t there—again.”

  Doug stared at her, openmouthed.

  “You actually believe that,” he said, sounding stunned. “You know what,” he continued, his voice becoming flinty and his eyes and jaw hard. “If he wasn’t there for you, Miranda, it’s because you wouldn’t let him be. You talked to me once. Once. And then you froze me out, too. And now you’re punishing him for not being able to read your mind?”

  Her voice became a growl. “You don’t understand.”

  “Fuck understanding you! I’m so fucking sick and tired of having to understand your pain and disappointments, how the world has been so hard on you. Do you honestly think you’re the only one?”

  For a moment, she couldn’t say anything.

  “Get out.”

  Doug laughed. He actually laughed at her. Miranda felt a sob well in her throat.

  “Now you’re gonna cry?” he said. “Are you gonna take your ball and go home, Miranda? Throw yourself a nice little pity party? Well fucking have at it.”

  Doug stormed across room. When he reached the door, he lurched to a halt and glared at the door.

  “Goddammit,” he hissed.

  She jumped when he kicked the door. Then he kicked it again. And again. He kept on kicking until she heard a sharp crack. Doug’s booted foot had punched through the bottom of the expensive, sturdy door, snapping the bottom third off.

  He stood in front of the battered door, seething. He took a few ragged breaths.

  “I can’t open your goddamn door.”

  Miranda
never thought that Doug would turn on her. Never, and not like this. They’d had their share of disagreements over the years, but he had never directed anger like this at her. Never ridiculed her pain.

  She stalked to the door and flung it open. He took a step forward, then turned back to face her.

  “I have never been so disappointed in anyone as I am in you right now,” he said softly, the anger just under the surface of his voice threatening to explode. “Shame on you, Miranda. Shame on you.”

  Miranda sat on the bathroom floor, her back against the vanity, a razor pinched tight between her fingers. Her hands rested on her outstretched legs, palms facing one another. Blood trickled down the inside of her bare thighs, puddling on the floor.

  This was the best part. Now, just after the very last cut, while they were still raw and new. While they hurt. The first few were too overwhelming. It rushed out too fast for her to feel the relief. But by the time she switched arms, the deluge began to ease. All the self-recrimination, the knowledge that everything was ruined because she had made that first mistake, because she hadn’t stopped to fucking think, began to ebb, and she could focus on the physical sensations. The bite of the razor’s corner tip. The slice of the unyielding metal on her flesh. The warmth of the blood welling up and running down her arm. She had done this to herself, to all of them, the voice in her head whispered.

  It was her fault.

  She pushed it away, quashed the voice through force of will using the calm that the razor had given her. Maybe that was why she was so angry with Mario, because he knew the truth she didn’t want to admit. She honestly did not know, but she didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to figure it out. She had just enough to claw her way through the day, to hang on by a sliver of her fingernails, to resist resorting to this. Most of the time. She laughed bitterly, then started to weep. This was the only relief she could find, and all it did was confirm how damaged she was.

  She had felt better for a while, after she and Mario had reconciled. She had even been happy. She had been kidding herself. It was all still there inside her but tamped down for now. She would be able to breathe again, until she couldn’t.

  The razor would be waiting.

  When she heard the knock on the door, she knew it was him.

  “It’s open. Come in.”

  The door opened. A few seconds later, Mario entered the townhouse. He looked frightened, like a child expecting a monster to gobble him up. When he got close enough for her to get a good look, she was shocked at how terrible he looked. It was as if every bit of spirit that he’d ever had, had been sucked out of him. He looked almost flat, like a piece of paper.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding.

  She stood before he reached her, pressing one of her arms against her body, leaning into the flare of pain. She needed to hold on to it, pull it close. It couldn’t help her otherwise. Mario stopped a few paces away from her.

  “I said some really terrible things to you, Miranda. Things that weren’t fair. That aren’t true. I’m sor—”

  She cut him off. “You meant what you said, every word.”

  Pain flared in Mario’s eyes, jagged and raw. He sucked in a breath. “No, I didn’t. I was angry and hurt, but I didn’t mean it. None of this is—”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  She felt the crack, the twisting apart. Maybe if she could still feel it, things might be different—she might be different—because it was only getting worse. The razor only helped so much and for so long. But the anger, the bitterness, the desire to strike out at him, magnified with every interaction, with every flicker of his need to connect with her. The angrier she got, the less she could remember what it felt like to love him. She poked at it, like her tongue had once prodded the empty space of a lost tooth.

  Every time he tried to connect, her contempt grew. Didn’t he have any pride, it whispered. Where was his dignity? His self-respect? To grovel and chase after her… What kind of man did that?

  Mario stepped back, the shock on his face filled with surprise, and not. And still, the need to connect with her.

  “So that’s it? After everything we’ve been through?”

  Maybe if he hadn’t said what he said, but he had. And she didn’t believe his denials. He had meant it. She didn’t see how things could ever be the same again.

  Even to herself she sounded detached, like a stranger in someone else’s life, when she said, “Yeah. I think it is.”

  Mario’s eyes searched her face, his breath rasping in and out of his slightly open mouth, so quick she could see the rise and fall of his chest.

  “Since when do you give up so easily?”

  “I don’t owe you anything. And I don’t love you anymore.”

  He hadn’t expected that. He stepped back, as if he had taken a blow, but then rallied.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said softly.

  He turned on his heel, almost reeling like a drunkard but just able to keep it together. Miranda watched him leave, expecting—waiting for—relief that never came.

  41

  Doug sighed. “I really screwed up.”

  Skye’s eyes were understanding. “You can only do your best, Doug. Most of the time, your worst day is better than a lot of people’s best.”

  Doug rolled his eyes.

  “It is,” she added. “But other times your best sucks. But it’s your best right then, on that day, and you can’t do better. You’ve got to stop beating yourself up.”

  Doug looked down at his boots, an unhappy scowl distorting his mouth. It was almost too warm where they sat at the bottom of the steps that led up to the observation deck of the old macaque enclosures. The observation decks were too dilapidated to use safely, but the steps were okay. Then he sighed and leaned against her. She slipped her hand into his.

  “You’re right. I know you’re right. You’re right about freaking everything.” He shot her a sideways grin. “It would be annoying except you’re so cute while you’re doing it.”

  Skye laughed. So much of the time he still could not believe any of this had happened. When he thought about the fact that he and Skye were together, that she loved him, it felt like he had hit the lottery.

  “It was the wrong way to go about things with Miranda, and I knew it. She’ll only dig in. It’s been a week, and she still won’t talk to me.” He stopped, searching for the words. “I just couldn’t believe it, and I got so angry. And then she dumps him,” he continued, incredulous. “Says she doesn’t love him anymore, after everything they’ve been through. If she didn’t love him, that would be one thing, but it’s obvious she does. I know they had a terrible fight, but…”

  He sighed, profoundly discouraged, as if it had been he and Skye and not his friends. “I don’t know what is going on with her.”

  Skye squeezed his hand. “Maybe she’ll figure it out and talk to you when she’s ready.”

  “I do think I know what’s going on, big picture, just not the heart of it. You know, the part that matters? It’s wrapped up with losing the baby, but she won’t admit it. It’s not getting the abortion. I believe her when she says that’s not it. But it’s something.” A hard edge entered his voice. “It’s like she wants to suffer.”

  “You’re still pissed.”

  Doug looked at her, surprised. “No, I’m not.”

  “Oh yes, you are,” Skye countered. “It’s in your voice. You can be angry and concerned about her at the same time.”

  Bone-deep gratitude enveloped him. He smiled and raised his hand to her cheek. Her skin was soft and warm.

  “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

  “You just got lucky.”

  He smiled, then kissed her.

  “I don’t want to go to a meeting,” he said when their lips parted. “I’d rather get you into bed.”

  “The day is still young,” Skye said, a promise in her eyes. She stood up, took his hands, and gave him a pull. “There are
lots of nooks and crannies in this building that are not being used.”

  “You are so full of it,” Doug said. “You have a million things to do since you’ve stepped up to take over for Anna.”

  “Temporarily,” Skye said. “This is just temporary. I do not want the top job at LO.”

  “Sometimes the job picks you.”

  She shook her head. “Not this time.”

  “None of the last ten people we’ve vaccinated have gotten sick, apart from slight fevers. That’s not unusual.” Mario gave a tight facsimile of a smile. “I think we can cautiously say we’ve got the kinks worked out.”

  Doug studied the dark smudges under Mario’s dull eyes, his pale skin, the exhaustion that accompanied his words. He looked like he had not slept well all week. Which he hadn’t, Doug was sure of that. If Doug had not known what was going on, he would think Mario was sick.

  He is sick, Doug thought. Heartsick.

  Mario should be brimming with excitement delivering this news. Instead, he could not manage the barest enthusiasm. Doug couldn’t even bring himself to be more than annoyed with Miranda for robbing Mario of the excitement of this moment. She had looked just as bad this morning, in a zoned-out way.

  “That’s great news,” Skye said, sounding excited. She leaned forward in her chair, her elbows on the table. Her fingers tapped on the tabletop. “What exactly do we need to ramp up production?”

  Mario and Alicia ran through equipment requirements for small-scale production, as opposed to the micro-scale in place at the moment. As far as equipment went, there was already enough to scale up quickly. They just needed to get it online and train people to do it. The real challenge were the long lists of organic materials and chemicals. Doug had seen it already, since he and Skye were part of the team that would begin scavenging for those items.