by David Beem
Her forehead creases, and her eyes bore into mine.
Hot sand works into my flip-flops as we touch down. Four ice-cold water bottles speed into our hands, two for each of us, courtesy of Dad raiding the nearest beach house. I crack the seal, guzzle the first, and monitor my physiologic response. Summary: Water is delicious. Arms, legs, and chest are strong. I drop the first bottle and guzzle the second. Neural activity returns to normal. Dad yields control, and my emotions come back online. My cheeks heat up like two electric burners.
Mary’s gaze reads my evolving condition. “All better?”
I pick up the bottle I dropped and screw the cap on before answering. “Sorry. When I’m like that, I guess…I guess I’m courageous.”
“Is it courageous if you’re not afraid?” She turns her attention to the spectacular properties, taking a few absentminded steps up the beach. “We need to remember how this affected you. For the next time Einstein wormholes us somewhere.”
Mary cruises up the beach in her hot bikini and another wave of embarrassment burns over my face. What a moron I am. I finally say the words, and I’m in that stupid trance. Real smooth, Romeo.
Mary, she goeth yonder wandering and waiteth for thee to follow, says Shakespeare.
Her gait lengthens. I hurry after her, kicking up sand and nearly tripping to keep my flip-flops on. A furry explosion draws my focus to a grassy hill leading away from one of the beach houses. A dog skids on its back down the hill, its tail wagging upside down. Mary spots her and grins. She kneels, holds her hands out, and the dog flips to her feet, wags her tail as if Mary’s comptroller of the global supply of bacon, and bounds forward, leaping from the built-up ledge and landing on Mary, knocking her to her butt and licking her face.
The dog spots me, charges—
She’s on me in a flash. Tongue, slobber, hair, dog breath.
“Hey-hey-hey!” I’m in the sand. Man, she’s heavy. Good thing she’s friendly.
“You did say you love me.” Mary brushes sand from her arms and stomach. “Now we have a baby.”
She hauls me to my feet, and I twist my mouth to the side. The dog’s sandy front paws leap up—oh, right in the nuts!
I double over, absorbing the blow through every pore in my body, and collapse. “N-not sure…there’s gonna be…babies,” I squeak.
Mary kneels and scratches the dog behind her ears. “Ooh. You need some manners, don’t you?”
I scoot my elbow under me, prop myself up, focus on the mounds our footprints made in the sand, how they’re shimmering sympathetically with the pain shriveling from my nuts into my stomach, and wait for the nausea to fade…
The course of true love never did run smooth, says Shakespeare.
Do you mind? I’m…kind of…in the…middle of…something. Grieving here. The death…of my left nut. No, wait. Not dead. It’s just…crying…in my right…kidney…
Everyone can master a grief but he that has it.
A wet nose bops my eye. Hot dog breath follows. I look up. Is she smiling at me?
Mary plops down at my side. The dog plops down at hers. I stifle a groan.
“Why are the resorts abandoned?” she asks. “Where are the locals?”
I take a centering breath before answering. “Nostradamus…puts everyone…together. Concentrated population centers. Probably got everyone inland.” Huh. Full sentences there at the end. Not bad.
She glances sideways at me. “Nostradamus’s world, Nostradamus’s rules.”
“And everyone on earth an NPC.”
“NPC?”
“Nonplayable character. Like in video games.”
I ease my legs out, and the pain radiates into my tailbone. I shift to my left butt cheek and the pain kind of returns to where it all started. So, progress.
“Any better?”
I stick my bottom lip out and somehow manage to nod yes and shake my head no at the same time. She smiles on one side and turns her head toward the house on the hill.
“How about that one?”
“Wait, what? Nut Kicker’s house?”
The dog lays her head on Mary’s leg, puffs a sigh out its nose and peers up at us.
“See that?” I say. “She’s sad.”
“Sad you might say no.”
Her lips tremble. I center my breathing and ease my butt in the sand and—oops, ouch—face this wacky home she’s picked out. Nestled into the foliage, but also coming right up onto the beach. One part lodge, one part hut, one part mansion. Five freaking balconies.
“That’s way too big for two,” I say, and the dog huffs. “Three. Way too big for three.”
“This feels like a too-good-to-be-true dream.”
I arch my eyebrow. “I could pinch you. Just tell me where.”
I search her features and try to get a read on her, but she’s doing that sphinx thing she does.
“Even if either of us had this kind of money,” I say, “I guarantee you neither of us would buy it.”
“That’s the whole point.”
“I suppose we could use a dead-body-disposal balcony.”
I hold my breath and wait for her to remember the cupboard from our place in Burbank. Her head tilts, and I meet her flirty gaze.
“Because what would life be without the occasional homicide?” she asks. “Does that mean you don’t care about my ‘snipery ways’ anymore?”
“Let’s just say you could blow up coconuts for a while, and I won’t lose any sleep. If we’re putting down roots, we wouldn’t want to provoke our omniscient overlord.”
“What? You don’t think he’d send me an occasional agent to sniper, just for kicks?”
“Probably.”
She purses her lips. “Can’t let a perfectly good dead-body-disposal balcony go unused.”
“No-o. Not when you have the Gucci of all dead-body-disposal balconies at your disposal.”
Her head tilts, and she peers sideways at me. She thumbs her wedding ring, shifts her weight to one side, and scratches her nose. “He really made that offer? We get this, he gets the world?”
“Mm-hmm.”
She breaks eye contact and faces the home again. “Maybe that’s why no one’s here. Maybe he’s hoping we’ll take him up on it.”
“What would you’ve said?” I ask, edging forward and peering hard into her eyes to catch her honest first reaction. A shadow crosses her features as she leans slightly away. The dog leaps up, her tail wagging furiously.
“Don’t ask me that.”
“It’s easier not to answer,” I say, knowing from experience. The memory sharpens in my mind’s eye: Blythe and Mary in those ridiculous space corsets battling to the death; Nostradamus putting the hard sell on me; that annoying Space Pirates fan who wouldn’t shut up. I push all that down and focus on the lodge-mansion. “Not answering. Letting one day slip into the next. Never deciding becomes deciding.”
Her gaze on my profile is like gravity, but I’ve gone inside my head. Let her stew for once.
We’ll need food, I say, my focus turning inward.
Yes, sir! Killmaster replies.
Telekinetic energy fizzing under my skin raises goose bumps. Sunlight on my eyelids blurs and resolves like a kaleidoscope. I’m a disembodied camera hovering above a building on the outskirts of a forest emptying into the town square. There’s a sign: The General Store.
Trouble, says Killmaster, and the disembodied camera pans left. Zombies in a field. Maybe thirty, forty? They’re divided into two groups, each linked by their arms in opposing rows.
“Red Rover, Red Rover, send Brenda right over!” calls one group to the other.
A woman detaches from her row and charges toward the linked arms on the other side. She collides into their arms, rebounds, falls on her back. Climbing to her feet, she dusts herself off and rejoins the game. The scene rewinds in high speed through the twists and turns of a wooded trail and skims the beach until reaching me and Mary in front of our new beach home again. Her lips are parted and turne
d down.
“What did you see?”
“We’re going shopping.”
“Shopping?” Her nose wrinkles and her head tilts back. “I hate shopping.”
“Oh, come on. You’re gonna love it. It’ll be dangerous, I promise.”
Chapter Eleven
“I thought you said they were playing Red Rover,” whispers Mary.
She slides her arm around my waist for balance, and I release my telekinetic hold on her weight. The branch dips lower. She wobbles for a second, her fingers digging into my hip, and I pull a thatch of juicy, dew-dropped leaves apart the old-fashioned way, with my hands. We peer through the hole, and her sweet womanly scent wafts over me and combines with fresh rain and the fertile Honduran vegetation.
“Potty time!”
A dozen or so break off from a larger group working on some kind of bizarre construction project. They gather on the north side of the town square and form a single-file line, hands on each other’s hips, and set off toward a field, their hips swinging rhythmically, and intermittently extending their legs to point their toes behind them in unison.
Mary and I exchange puzzled glances, then turn our attention back to the conga line.
“So many more zombies than I saw earlier,” I whisper.
Hundreds, maybe. And what the heck are they building? Long walkways of varying height. Two, three, or four stories in the air. Each supported by single vertical beams. Each with shining golden discs standing on end in a row…
Screeching pulleys catch my ear. Another batch of zombies, these heaving a rope. On the other side of a pulley, another walkway is erected.
“What do you make of it?” whispers Mary.
On the ground are vertical green pipes big enough to climb into. Large cartoonish red-and-beige-spotted mushrooms like you might see in a theme park.
“He’s turning the island into a Mario course.”
“Mario?”
“It’s a video game.”
Her forehead creases. I turn my attention back to the Mario course. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. I mean, hey, could be fun?
“Maybe people are better off like this,” she says. “They seem happy. Who’re we to change it?”
“It’d make our job easier if we left it.”
Hydraulics whine from the side of the course. Two zombies operating a pair of excavators’ jackhammer attachments are using them to play tic-tac-toe. Beyond those, another group is doing a song-and-dance number. Random? I crane my neck, listen.
“It’s ‘Put on a Happy Face.’” Mary shifts her weight. Our tree branch wobbles, and she tightens her hold on my waist. “Nostradamus must be really bored. Still, Edger, song-and-dance numbers don’t make this any less dangerous. I’m afraid.”
I agree, sir, says Killmaster. If you had listened before barging in, you’d understand this zone isn’t safe. All it takes is one misstep, and you’re in the kick line.
Don’t be absurd, I reply. Mary’s got mad spy skills, and I’m a mad ninja.
[No,] says Hanzo. [I’m the mad ninja.]
Have you gone mental? asks Nigel. It’s a zombie apocalypse out there!
I thought you were all about impressing the ladies, I say.
Not by taking unnecessary risks, Nigel replies.
“Come on,” I say, eyeing the General Store and nudging her arm. “Supplies.”
“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” she replies.
“Of course it’s a good idea. We’re together, aren’t we?”
She gives me her don’t-be-ridiculous look.
“Mary. I just got you back. I’m not losing you again.”
Her eyebrows rise. Aa-and there goes the eye roll. I lace my fingers into hers, and my medulla-holy-crap-I’m-in-love-oblongata starts sizzling like a funnel cake food truck. I take one last hasty inventory of the zombies:
The kick line is still kicking—
Tic-tac-toe excavators are tic-tac-toeing—
Conga zombies are now sambaing. Because…why not? I guess?
Tickling energy bubbles beneath my skin. We lift from our perch in the tree and float down to its base. My weight rolls across the balls of my feet to my heels, my knees bend, and our hands, still laced together, swing out as we catch our balance.
Okay, so, think. I made the first move, right? We’re holding hands. That counts. Or does that not count after middle school? Did Kate start with the hand holding? Or maybe the evil ex isn’t the correct barometer for this stuff. Then again, Mary kissed me in Fiji when she thought we were going to die, so—
You need to get your head in the game, sir, says Killmaster. Or it’s Bye Bye Birdie.
Hanzo’s head is in the game, I say.
[Quiet,] says Hanzo. [Both of you. This isn’t as easy as it looks.]
A new personality sloshes over me like a 7-Eleven Slurpee. I drop Mary’s hand and perform three consecutive split leaps, followed by an aerial cartwheel, a back flip—stick the landing—and…pose. My hands are up like I’ve just won gold.
Bronze, says Marion Bronte. I did that routine in ’48.
She relinquishes control, and I flatten myself against a large tree. Duck left. My heart beating like a game of whack-a-mole, I survey the area.
Pulley zombies pulleying—
Chorus line chorus-lining—
Samba zombies…have dropped trou and are doing their business in front of God and everybody!
I press my back into the trunk again. Okay. I did not need to see that.
Nostradamus’s world, Nostradamus’s rules, says Nigel.
Ja, says Einstein. He must have missed ze invention of ze bathroom door.
I knew he was up to something with that samba, says Killmaster.
Mm-hmm, says Nigel. Good for working out the constipation. Honestly, if he’d just let them eat more leafy vegetables…
Mary hurries to my hiding spot, her shoulder crashing into mine as she catches her breath. “Let me guess: possessed by a reckless Olympian?”
I’m not reckless! says Marion. She just doesn’t have any sense of adventure. Do you have any idea what it took to become an Olympian as a woman in 1948?
I’m going to say a bit more than a flirt but less than a casting couch, offers Nigel.
Why, you— begins Marion.
I’ve faced war zones less dangerous than that joke, says Killmaster. Good thing you’re dead already.
Not dead enough, says Marion. Come here. I’m going to kill you again.
See the violence inherent in the system! cries Nigel.
[Enough!] cries Hanzo.
He has me snatch Mary’s hand and race for the rear of a brick building—wait. Was she just looking at me? No, I probably imagined it. She does seem to be breathing faster. Kind of pale too. Is that because we’re holding hands, or because of the whole sneaking-into-the-lion’s-den thing? Do girls really dig danger?
[Focus!] says Hanzo.
We hunker down behind a dumpster and catch our breaths. Oh. Bad place to do that. Stinks!
The ring, says Hanzo.
Oh, right, I say. Good thinking.
My hand shoves into my pocket. I pull out the ring and push it over my finger. Black goo bubbles out. Cold slime pushes up my arm, over my shoulder, across my chest. I clench my eyes, gasp one last breath. The goo reaches my neck. It globs over my face, the top of my head. The commotion in my ears resolves. Cool air hits my face. I open my eyes again and the HUD is up. I hold my arms out. Ridges and design patterns finish taking shape.
“That never gets any less cool.” Mary cracks a smile. She steps onto the curb in front of me so she’s just a bit taller, and her scrutiny takes me apart to the microbial level. Air floods out of my lungs as a reckless surge of confidence rises from God only knows where. I open my mouth and hope for the best.
“You’re beautiful,” I croak in my electronically altered superhero voice. “I mean on the inside. I’ve seen you on the inside.”
She frowns.
“W
hen I was you. I mean. After you were, you know…”
Born in a cloning chamber? says Marion. Romance really is dead.
I throw caution to the wind. “I love you.”
Her lips compress.
How is it possible people have forgotten how to do this? asks Marion, and inside my supersuit, the back of my neck warms.
“You think I should go shopping now,” I say.
She nods.
“You think this isn’t the time to profess my lurv,” I say.
She tilts her head and shrugs.
“Okay. I’ll just…” I lift my hand and point stupidly at the building behind us. I turn to go, then stop and turn back around. “Is there anything you want? I mean—”
“Oh, if they have a really great body wash,” she says, brightening. “Something with vanilla, or lavender maybe? Shea butter. Oh—and mouthwash. Not Listerine, though. I want to keep my taste buds.”
“Right, okay. Um…”
Killmaster seizes control and operates the HUD. A notepad feature pops up, and next thing I know, I’m looking at two items added to a grocery list. Dang, this is a handy superpower.
No problem, sir, he replies. Best to write it down, I always say.
“Oh,” she says. “See if they have…” Her mouth makes an eek shape. “You know, maybe I should go with you.”
“No. No, it’s too dangerous. Just tell me. It’s okay.”
“No, really. It’s better if I go with you.”
“Hey,” I say, grabbing her by the elbow and shaking. “It’s okay. I got this. Superpowers, right?”
Holding eye contact, she gives a reluctant nod. “Uh-huh.”
She lowers her eyes, mutters, “TrmpxRudnutShuperPuhAbshabashaDapahsh.”
“Huh? What was that?”
“TrmpxRudnutShuperPuhAbshabashaDapahsh.”
“Mary?”
“Tampax Radiant Super Plus Absorbency tampons,” she says, enunciating every syllable.
Yikes, says Nigel. Maybe she should go with you.
Killmaster adds Tampax Radiant Super Plus Absorbency tampons to the list in the HUD.
“Not that I’m—I mean… I’m not now…” Her gaze turns to face the zombies again. “It’s just… We prepare. You know? Us girls. Preparing for later.”
