Natalie says, “Yeah. I think so. Well, I’m the same as I was before. Nothing new hurts. I think I peed a little.”
A boat-sized white sedan is latched onto the ambulance like a lamprey, its crumpled nose buried into the driver’s-side rear wheel well. The car’s back wheels spin, whine, and smoke. It bullies the ambulance’s back end, pushing it over the road’s shoulder, into the brush, and pins the passenger’s-side rear bumper and tire against a rock wall. The ambulance is now turned so as to be almost perpendicular to Bay Road. The cab rocks from side to side.
Ramola checks the mirrors but can’t yet see the driver. Knowing it’ll be futile, given the ambulance’s rear axle is likely mangled, she presses the gas pedal. The engine complains, revs high, but they don’t go anywhere. She tries the lower gears, shifts into reverse, and then back into drive, but nothing catches.
“I didn’t see anything but I assume we were hit by a car and not rammed by a rabid circus elephant, or Dumbo’s mom. One of the few Disney animal moms who doesn’t die. They put her in a cage instead. Said she’d gone crazy. They always say that.”
As Natalie continues on about cages and other Disney moms, Ramola shifts into park, unbuckles her seat belt, and reaches for the door handle.
“Hey, whoa, where are you going?”
“Out there to—”
Natalie finishes for her, “Out there to talk to the nice person who crashed into us and is pushing us into the woods?”
“The gas pedal could be stuck. The driver is likely hurt and needs help.”
Natalie yells, “No! N-no! You know! You know what—what the driver is! You—you know!” She gets louder the more she stammers, and her eyes go satellite-dish big the more frustrated she’s clearly becoming with herself. “You know, Rams!” The outburst isn’t as shocking as her sudden confused countenance.
The bike riders spring from their hiding spots and sprint the short distance down and across the road to the accident. They are boys likely in their late teens; one brandishes an aluminum baseball bat and the other carries a thin, sun-bleached wooden pole, almost as long as he is tall. In addition to their skateboarder-style helmets and hoodies the teenagers are wearing jeans and black high-top sneakers. Red bandannas cocoon their necks. Each has three water bottles hanging in front of his chest, dangling from a yoke of cords. The taller teen has long dark curly hair spilling out from under his helmet; the straps are unfastened and dangle on both sides of his chin and neck. The other boy’s helmet is so tightly worn as to be a carapace.
They give the sedan’s rear end and its hissing tires a wide berth. The shorter one waves to Ramola and continues to wave until she raises a hand. He gives a thumbs-up and then cups one hand around his mouth, and shouts. The other teen shouts too. Ramola rolls the window halfway down to better hear them.
“It’s okay!” and “We’re healthy!” and “We’re friendlies!” and “Yeah, friendlies!” and “We’re gonna help!” and “We got this!” and “We’re zombie experts!”
“Bloody wankers.” Ramola turns and says to Natalie, “Call 911. If you can’t get through . . .” She digs out Dr. Awolesi’s card. “Even if you do get through, call Dr. Awolesi. Or text her. Tell her where we are and we need a new ride.”
Ramola opens the ambulance door and steps down onto the street. Natalie objects, says something about taking a weapon. Ramola doesn’t respond and shuts the door.
The sedan’s rear wheels stop spinning. The teens bob and weave, approaching and then retreating from the driver’s-side door like children chasing receding ocean waves and running away when the surf surges back to shore. They engage in rapid-fire commands, insults, inanities, retorts, and it’s all so quick as to almost be of one voice.
“The driver’s some old guy.”
“Smash the window.”
“I can’t see what he’s doing. Wait a second.”
“Nah, guy. Smash it now.”
“You fucking do it then.”
“I can’t. Not with the staff.”
“What?” which is pronounced as an elongated, affected “Wut.”
“The staff is not made for window smashing.”
“What’s the staff made for? Polite tapping?”
“Don’t question the staff.”
“Are you going to say ‘the staff’ every time you refer to it?”
“The staff abides.”
Ramola interjects, “Hello, gentlemen—”
“The staff blows.”
“The staff doesn’t blow.”
“The staff is the bad.”
“You’re right. It’s the good.”
Ramola tries again. “Hey, guys?”
“You should’ve just taken one of these.” The shorter teen waves the bat over his head.
“You’re gonna have to get too close to zombies with your stumpy-ass bat. And I’ll keep ’em all at more than an arm’s length. I’ll be out of range.”
“Keep ’em all . . . at arm’s length is a great battle cry.”
Ramola shouts, “Guys! Hey! Over here!”
The teens back away from the car and stare at Ramola. They are both thin and lithe. The taller one with the long hair is a couple inches shy of six feet. His brown eyes are sunken between rounded cheeks and below thick, crayon-scribble eyebrows. The shorter teen might be only a handful of inches taller than Ramola; he’s certainly not taller than Natalie. He has sharper, more severe facial features, olive skin, and eyes so dark as to almost be black. He says, “Hey, what’s up, Doc?” He smirks and looks to his partner for a reaction or approval. The taller one flashes looks between the car and Ramola.
The Bugs Bunny quip notwithstanding, Ramola speaks before the two of them can start again, hoping her acknowledged medical status inspires gravitas. She says, “Tell me you’re not planning on assaulting the driver, who probably needs help, just like my friend and I do—”
“Yeah, okay, Doctor Who. Listen: the driver has been trying to run us down for, like, the last ten minutes.”
“He followed us for more than a mile, swerving all over the road and shit, driving after us on sidewalks. He even followed us through a couple of backyards.”
“The driver’s clearly a zombie.”
“You can’t help a zombie, Doc.”
“A zombie driving the car. Can you believe it?”
“I know, right? This timeline is glitching out.”
“So hard.”
Ramola says, “The driver may very well be infected, but he is not a zombie.” She walks between the teens and as she gets closer to the sedan one of them mumbles, “Same diff.” She crouches, peering inside the window. The driver is an elderly white man with thinning but stubborn wispy tufts of white hair. Foamy saliva bubbles around his mouth. He sways in his seat, shakes his head, and rubs his eyes with the back of his hands. His movements are herky-jerky, frames missing from stop-motion animation. When he sees Ramola, he slaps the window with open hands.
The taller teen says, “I think we have his attention.”
“Tap the window with the staff just in case we don’t.”
“Fucker.”
Ramola backs away from the car, unsure of what to do. When she first climbed out of the ambulance, she had visions of commandeering a damaged-but-not-totaled sedan and driving Natalie and the presumably injured (but hopefully not infected) driver the approximately two miles to the clinic. She can’t think of a way to get the infected man out of the car without endangering everyone, the elderly man included. She is not going to allow the teens to bash and batter him with their weapons. She cannot tell if the teens are too gleeful at the prospect of violence or too clueless to fully appreciate the situation into which they’ve inserted themselves. Likely a combination of both, as the flame of violence is generally fueled by ignorance. Should they instead barricade the old man into the vehicle somehow, particularly if they are forced to start down the road on foot? They would also have to slash the tires to further disable the sedan, making sure he couldn’t drive af
ter them. Perhaps she should check in with Natalie, to see if 911 or Dr. Awolesi has responded.
Ramola briefly explains to the teens that her friend Natalie is pregnant, the baby is due in a matter of days, and they need to get her to the Ames Clinic as soon as possible. Ramola purposefully does not tell them Natalie has been exposed to the virus and is possibly infected. She has never been a skillful liar, including lies of omission. While she thinks it’s doubtful the zombie bros have the wherewithal to detect she isn’t telling them the entire story, the shorter one looks at Ramola, his head slightly cocked, as though he’s picking up on what she isn’t saying. That he might not trust what Ramola is telling them makes her trust him a bit more.
The shorter one says, “Never been to the clinic but we know Five Corners well.”
Ramola asks, “We need a car. Do either of you live close by?”
The taller teen shakes his head. “Our apartment is in Brockton. You could walk to the clinic and back in the time it would take for us to bike back, get a car from a friend, even if we could get one.”
They look too young to have their own apartment, but Ramola files that nagging thought away. “Is there anyone close by in Ames you could call, ask for a ride? Another ambulance might be on the way, but I would prefer not to wait too long.”
The shorter teen smirks. “Nah, sorry, no one we know around here would want to help us, I don’t think.”
“Yeah, we’re not too popular in these parts.”
An odd set of answers that makes Ramola mentally step aside from the manic at-all-costs quest to get Natalie to the clinic and analyze the danger inherent in being alone with two strange and quite possibly unstable young men carrying weapons.
The sedan’s door opens. The dented metal pops and creaks. The old man shouts, “Top off!” and laboriously pulls himself out of the car and onto his feet. He’s dressed in slacks and a beige dress shirt, some buttons in the wrong holes, other buttonholes skipped over.
“Top off! Half done!” He blinks like there’s sand in his eyes. He briefly smiles; the face of someone’s kindly grandfather. His mouth goes slack, gapes open; the face of madness.
The teens laugh, and shout, “Oh yeah!” and “Let’s go!”
The old man does not move quickly, but he is shuffling toward them. His right leg lags behind as he lurches forward, and he reaches for his hip with each shuddering step.
The taller teen says, “Wait, wait, wait!” He tucks his staff under an arm, most of the length of pole trailing behind him. He unhooks one of the clear water bottles from around his neck; a hard plastic polycarbonate bottle athletes and hikers favor. “Let’s have a test.”
“Nah, guy. No fucking around.”
“Look at him. He’s slow.” He unscrews the bottle’s lid. He steps toward the elderly man.
The shorter one backs away a few steps, and his hard look softens.
“Hey, gramps. Have some. Water is the good.”
The shorter teen laughs but laughs too hard. He’s clearly nervous and scared, but he doesn’t want to admit it, and/or (one does not preclude the other) he’s on the verge of losing control.
“Top off! Half done! All gone!” The elderly man’s voice wavers and is full of gravel.
The teen holds the bottle out in front of him, a vampire hunter holding forth a cross. Water sloshes over the bottle’s rim and splatters on the pavement.
The old man’s arms jerk. His body shakes and convulses. He coughs and retches.
The taller teen says, “Oh shit, it really works. He’s freaking out. The power of Christ compels you!” He laughs, lunges forward, and splashes water onto the old man.
The old man recoils, stumbling back into his car, but he rebounds and propels forward. He lashes out with a closed fist, knocking the bottle out of the teen’s hand.
The teen panics, his arms windmilling as he scrambles backward. His staff falls and clatters to the pavement. His feet get tangled with each other, crashing him to the street. His helmet pops off and rolls past Ramola. She runs to his aid.
“All gone! All gone!” The old man’s voice is deep and ancient, the weary, inevitable groan of tectonic plates. His broken strides, like those of the coyote, impossibly carry his bulk.
Ramola crouches, grabs the prone teen’s left arm, and attempts to pull him onto his feet and away from the approaching old man. The teen half sits up and crab-walks backward. She instantly calculates he is not moving quickly enough for him to get away. Ramola lets go of the teen’s arm, reaches, and grabs one end of the wooden staff. She flicks the other end up and pushes it between the elderly man’s ankles. She pushes hard right on the staff, as though flipping a lever.
The man’s right leg crumples, and the old man lists and falls left. As he does so, the shorter teen rushes in, swings the bat with two hands. Had the old man remained upright, the bat would’ve struck him in the head; instead, with his right leg giving out and his body already in the process of collapsing, his head dips and his left shoulder rises up, which is where the teen lands the blow. The contact is solid but happens later in the swing’s arc, which throws the teen off balance. He falls hard onto one knee but is quickly able to gather himself and regain his feet.
The blow spins the old man to his left, sending him careening into the ambulance. His head bounces off the side panel and he slides to the road.
Ramola rises from her crouch, the staff held in both hands.
The taller teen scoots backward until he’s behind Ramola. He laughs and shouts, “The staff is the good!”
The shorter teen limps around in a couple of tight circles, shaking out his lower leg. He swears and talks to himself. Tears stream down his cheeks.
The taller teen stops laughing, serious now, and says softly to his friend, “Hey, guy. It’s okay. I’m okay.”
“Fuck you! Fuck this!” He wipes his face on his sleeves.
The elderly man rolls over onto his back. A gash has opened on his wide forehead. Hands flutter at his eyes and they smear the blood around, turning his face red. His breaths are watery and hiss like a tire leaking air. Mixed in are heartbreakingly clear ows and whimpers. He attempts to get up, putting weight on his lower leg, which is bent at an unnatural angle at the knee. He screams and melts back to the pavement.
The taller teen asks Ramola, “Hey, um, can I have my staff back?”
The shorter teen stomps toward the old man, bat cocked. He’s still crying but he’s also grunting and breathing heavy like a bodybuilder gearing up for the big lift.
Ramola, staff in her hands, intercepts him. “Stop. Slow down, wait. Hey, what’s your name? You can keep calling me Doctor Who if you like, but my name is Ramola.” She hopes to calm him down with an exchange of names, a reminder of their humanity.
The teen pauses his advance. His bat is still cocked but his snarl is gone. He says, “Luis.”
“Hello, Luis. And your friend’s name?”
“Josh,” answers the other teen. He retrieves his helmet and holds it in the crook of an arm.
Luis lunges forward. He says, “We need to do this. We have to—”
Ramola fully steps into and blocks his path. “Look at his leg.”
Josh says, “Oh, that’s nasty.” He half covers his face with a hand, groans, and makes assorted that-is-so-gross noises.
Ramola continues, speaking in pointed and short sentences, as though she is delivering difficult news to a parent of one of her sick patients. “He’s not getting up. He will not come after us. You don’t need to hit him again.”
Luis flutters looks between Ramola and Josh. He says, “He’s a zombie. We need to kill him.”
“No. He is not a zombie. He is a man. You would be killing a sick man. You’re not a killer, Luis. You and your friend Josh aren’t killers.”
Luis shakes his head. “We killed someone before—”
“Hey, guy, hey, no . . .” Josh says, and puts the helmet on. His head sinks between his shoulders and he pulls the helmet’s crown over his eye
s, as though he can’t bear to watch.
Luis says, “He was old.” He isn’t looking at Ramola, but he isn’t looking at the old man either. “Wasn’t all our fault. We didn’t know what we were doing.” The defeated tone of his voice belies the boast or threat inherent within the we-killed-a-guy confession regardless as to whether it is the truth or a lie. Is he saying they killed another infected old man?
She says, “This would be different, Luis. You know what you are doing because I’m telling you. You’d be choosing to kill a man now. There wouldn’t be any doubt or question.”
“We’d be helping him. Putting him out of his misery. There’s no cure,” Josh says.
It’s clear to Ramola this is empty posturing on Josh’s part. Or maybe it’s what she wants to believe. Ramola unleashes her most withering look, and Josh dries up, shrinks, and suddenly discovers the tops of his sneakers to be fascinating.
The moment of potential further violence has passed. Ramola feels it, like an easing of barometric pressure. She says, “You don’t get to decide that.” Ramola tosses the staff into Josh’s chest.
He catches it and mumbles, an admonished child, “Neither do you,” but again, doesn’t dare return her glare.
The old man has stopped moving. His breathing is labored and arrhythmic. His eyes are closed.
The bat sags in Luis’s hands, a flag gone limp. He nods at Ramola and walks over to his friend. Josh pats him on the back, mumbles belated commentary about Luis “pillaging the zombie’s cut” with one swing.
Ramola walks past the huddled, whispering teens (their annoying bro lingo all but indecipherable) to the ambulance door and opens it. She begins to ask if Natalie was able to get through to 911 or communicate directly with Dr. Awolesi, but stops. Natalie isn’t in her seat.
Ramola climbs into and inspects the empty cab as though she might find Natalie crouching or hiding on the cab floor, folded neatly into the center console. She throws a panicked look into the rear of the ambulance, but she isn’t there either. Ramola shouts Natalie’s name as she slides out of the ambulance, landing awkwardly onto Bay Road. She slams the driver’s door shut.
Survivor Song Page 13