by T. L. Bodine
Is that what happened to Javier? Was that a temporary phase? Did he awaken at some point, blood running down his chin, and wonder what had happened? Could he taste flesh on his tongue? Was he ashamed?
But, by the same token: Those people on the news, the blank-eyed Undead cut down by police. Had their status been temporary? If they had been captured rather than killed, if they had been held with compassion rather than destroyed like rabid animals, would they have come through on the other side whole and complete and normal?
“It’s just a withdrawal,” Zoe’s saying, with the excitement of someone who’s solved a puzzle and is eager to explain it to anyone who will listen. “It’s like coming off of heroin or something. Like, they look pretty scary, too, I bet. But it’s just. A thing that happens. And we have it all here on tape. God. I can’t believe I managed to get this footage to work. You have no idea how much…Davin?”
I realize I’ve been staring past her, barely hearing. My eyes are still fixated on that still image of me staring up at the camera, but my mind’s elsewhere. I’m thinking of Gail in the desert, with her huge pupils and her lip curled in a snarl, lunging for my truck. I think of her crouched over a carcass in the middle of the road in the rain. I don’t think that all of us come through the other side of this and remain entirely whole. Is it just left to chance? Could things have gone a different way for me — a path where I never return to myself, where I stay that slack-jawed, empty-eyed creature on the tape? Or is there some part of this that we’re missing?
Zoe’s staring at me.
“Sorry. It’s. It’s great. You did a great job. I’m proud of you.”
“I’d really like to post it,” she says. “I think it’d make for a really powerful episode on the show. My supporters are going to go nuts.”
“I don’t know if that’s a great idea,” I say, automatically. “I mean. My face…”
“It’s pretty blurry,” she says. “I don’t think anybody’s facial recognition software is going to pick that one out.”
“I know, but…”
Her eyes narrow.
What I don’t tell her: I don’t know if it’ll make any difference. If this is normal — if this is the real truth — then surely we’re not the only people in the world who have figured it out. And that it’s not front-page news already means that someone, somewhere out there, is trying to stop it. Someone is trying to cover this up, or else there’s a ton of stuff like this already out there and nobody cares. Zoe thinks this is going to be the thing that blows some kind of movement wide open, as if the reason the police and the government are treating the Undead like they do is because they just don’t know any better.
“Have you ever seen anybody else saying anything about this?”
“The Dusty Bones,” she says. “Although, I haven’t heard much of anything from them at all lately. I’ve never seen a video like this, though. Normally the videos are just…you know.”
“Like the first couple minutes of this one,” I say, and pantomine the silent bug-eyed scream, the grotesque twist of the head and wide jaws. When she doesn’t laugh, I straighten my features. Zoe used to think I was both cool and hilarious, but I think we’re long past that at this stage. She’s gotten old enough to realize that she’s always been the cooler sibling. “So what happens when somebody takes your video, cuts it down, reposts it to make it look like I’m a demonic monster, and then someone comes after us with a mob?”
“Oh my god Davin you are so paranoid.”
“Am I, though? I think it’s a good question.”
She rolls her eyes, but I think I can sense some hesitation in her now. “They can steal it all they want. We’ve got the original.”
“I’m just not super comfortable with it,” I press, and, because I hate seeing the irritated disappointment on her face, quickly add, “not yet. I’ll think on it. And you’ll need Randy’s permission, too.”
“I bet Randy will think it’s awesome.”
She’s probably completely right, but I don’t want to tell her that.
***
The video gives me as good a reason as any to try Randy again. I don’t bother to call, just send a text: Hey, Zoe got the footage of that night fixed. U want to see?
No response for a while, and I set my phone down and get on with my day, cleaning moldy leftovers out of the fridge, sweeping up cigarette butts that have escaped from the ashtray outside. When I do go check my phone again, there’s a new message notification, but it’s not from Randy.
It’s from Chuy:
Tell your boyfriend not to try snooping around out here again. It’s not safe.
Chapter 11
“Christ, Davin, you’re blowin’ up my phone like a debt collector. What?”
Randy sounds tired when he answers, voice sleep-fogged and hoarse. Something in my chest unclenches immediately when I hear his voice, replaced almost instantly with annoyance.
“I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day.”
“I noticed that.”
“You didn’t think maybe there was a reason?”
“You didn’t think there was a reason I wasn’t answering? I didn’t want to talk. Shit. What is this, an inquisition?”
I can feel Zoe’s eyes on me through the back door, and I shift my weight and lower my voice. I’m bent almost double on the picnic table, a steadily depleting pack of smokes next to me. “I just wanted to be sure you were okay.”
“I’m okay,” he replies, with an edge of snark like he’s spoiling for a fight. Then he sighs, and, more softly, “I don’t want to talk about my dad.”
“That’s not…” my cigarette dies, and I fumble to light another one. “You just left. Without saying anything.”
“Yeah. I wasn’t thinking. I came back, and I guess Jo gave you a ride by then already. Sorry.”
“Did you…go somewhere today?”
He hesitates. “I went out for a drive, yeah.” A moment’s pause, and then, almost sheepish. “I went out past the Lazarus House. I was looking for those people you were tellin’ me about. Which, for the record, we need a good nickname for. Didn’t find them, though, if that’s what you’re freakin’ out about.”
“Did you stop at the Lazarus House?”
“Seriously, what’s the deal with the twenty questions? Yes I stopped by. Nobody would let me in. They’ve got the place defended like Fort Knox.”
“I’m asking because somebody saw you. Somebody who knows…” Deep exhale. “Chuy. He’s Undead. He still works there. And I know because he’s texting me some kind of threat about you coming around. So I’m going to really need you to explain what happened and why you haven’t been answering my calls.”
The line goes quiet for a minute, and I’m half afraid that he’s hung up, but when I look at the screen the call is still live.
“So…were you planning on tellin’ me that Chuy’s still walkin’ around, or was I just supposed to find that out on my own?”
“I didn’t have a chance to tell you —”
“You told me this whole big story about these Undead living out in the desert and you didn’t bother to mention the part about the guy on the inside who we know is good for a connection?”
“I don’t think he is,” I say. “I think…I don’t know what his deal is. He’s not answering his phone, either. Lots of that going around. But — he told me to tell you to stay away. It’s not safe. That’s exactly what he said. And considering…everything…I think we’d better listen.”
Randy makes an irritated noise, but seems to relent. “Fine. Whatever. It’s a dead end, anyway. Like I said, there’s no getting close to that place now. Have you seen it lately?”
I was just there a few days ago. How intense could it be?
***
“Hey, Zoe. Have you heard from Dad lately?”
I come back inside after finishing off the last of the smokes. I let Randy go as soon as I was satisfied he’d told me everything, when I was reasonably sure he wasn’t hid
ing some terrible event. But now I can’t let go of that lingering feeling, some parts dread, some parts curiosity.
Zoe has definitely been eavesdropping. She crosses her arms over her chest, posting herself like a temple guardian in the hallway. “So, who’s Chuy?”
“Never mind that.”
“What were you and Randy arguing about?”
“It’s nothing.”
Her eyes narrow.
“So, no calls from Dad?”
“Nope. Not since you were up there last.” She frowns. “Actually, he didn’t even call me on my birthday. That’s pretty shitty.”
Shitty, and not entirely out of character. Still, it’s not doing anything to ease my nerves.
“Do you want to go for a drive?”
***
The Lazarus House sprawls dark against the horizon. The sunset bleeds over the adobe, painting the sandstone, casting dusky hues over the surrounding desert. Above the lines of crimson and gold at the edge of the horizon, the sky fades from deep blue to black, the earliest flickers of stars poking through the darkening sky.
But no lights shine within. It looks sealed up tight. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it was empty.
I hope it’s not empty.
When I called, I couldn’t get through on the phone. Just an answering service, the same recorded message on a loop: “We’re sorry, but no one is available to take your call at this time. For the safety of our staff, our patients and their families, we have suspended all visitation at this time. Thank you for your understanding. We’re sorry, but…”
I don’t know what I was expecting when I drove out here, but it wasn’t this. I think maybe a part of me thought, or hoped, that it was some kind of joke. That I could just show up and sort it out in person, maybe have a little argument with the lady at the front desk, maybe feed her some kind of bullshit and get inside anyway. But idling at the curb at the foot of the long gravel drive, that doesn’t seem very likely at all.
The gate is closed, bridging the gap between two rows of lazy barbed wire fencing. Guards patrol the perimeter of the fence; not hospital staff, either, or the overweight gatekeeper I’m used to. This looks military. National Guard, probably, dressed in fatigues, armed. They look bored, not on alert, and don’t spare us a second glance — but I imagine all of that’s about to change if we linger here too long. All the same, I can’t help but assume they’re more concerned with keeping people in than out.
“What the fuck,” Zoe whispers in the car beside me, pressing her nose to the passenger side window. She’s got her phone out, trying surreptitiously to get some photos. I swat at her to put it down before one of the guards sees.
What a difference just days have made. It feels like a completely different facility from when I was there last. That guy had said they’d be changing things, but I wasn’t expecting that change to be so abrupt, so surreal. The place looks like it’s been transformed, a hostile takeover with the new warlord guarding the castle. It’s hard to even wrap my head around what’s going on here, how quickly a medical facility can shift into a prison.
“It looks deserted,” I say, eyes trailing over the rough adobe face of the old building. The windows are dark, giving no hint of life or activity inside. I nod toward the guards. “Aside from, you know.”
“Some lockdown,” Zoe agrees, and she’s holding up her phone again. I don’t try to stop her. “You were here, what, three days ago? And it’s already like this?” She gestures, a broad sweep of the hand to indicate ‘this.’
“They had to have been planning this for months,” I say, but I don’t even know if that’s true. How long does it take to get a military deployment like this? If the government wants to move, what’s stopping them from doing it immediately? I honestly have no idea, but I know I’m so far out of my depth that I feel like I’m drowning. I don’t need to breathe, but the pressure on my chest is suffocating anyway. “We need to get out of here.”
The news stories about the violent Undead. The government assistance to put your loved ones into a facility. The advertisements. Everything pointing toward rounding up the Undead — and now here it is, the second phase, the part where they barricade the doors and keep everyone under lock and key.
Viewed this way, in hindsight, it’s impossible to see it as anything but a malicious scheme. It’s impossible to believe that the facility ever once might have had good intentions.
And I put my dad here. However much of an asshole he is, I was the one who put him here.
“And who knows what else there is inside,” Zoe is saying. “Who knows what else they know that nobody is telling the rest of us.”
Not long ago, I would have dismissed this kind of talk — this Dad-like conspiracy theorizing. But a broken clock is still right twice a day, and sometimes powerful people keep terrible secrets. Sometimes the conspiracies are true.
I don’t know what’s going on in there, and I don’t want to know. But I know I don’t want to linger outside any longer. I release the brake and peel out, turning around at the last minute, and realize that I could just walk away from all of this right now. Maybe I never need to cross the river, never need to drive past the place where I died. If I want, now, I could live my entire life on the other side of the Rio de Animas and pretend that the Lazarus House doesn’t even exist.
A part of me wants to believe I could really do that.
***
I don’t dare take Zoe to the Undead camp in the desert, but I return on my own two days later.
But first, Randy comes on Sunday, and we spend some time playing the card game Zoe got for her birthday — three people playing at being a family. I don’t talk about my worries about what might be happening to my dad behind the double fences of his treatment facility, and Randy doesn’t talk about the Lazarus. He asks Zoe about the footage and goes with her to watch it; I can’t bear to see it again, so I go on to bed, waiting for him to come and slide in beside me. He does, finally, and his hands on me, under my boxers, his breath on the back of my neck, is enough to make me forget everything for a while.
When I wake up, Randy’s gone, but he’s sent some money to me through a phone app, with a string of incomprehensible emojis: man, money bag, smile with the cross-ways tape on its mouth, wrapped gift.
“Hey, Zoe. I’m heading out for a bit.” I stop outside her closed door to tell her.
“Job app stuff?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
It’s not lying if she suggests it first.
On my way out of town, I stop off at the feed store that dabbles in sporting goods. It smells like warm leather and grain inside, and there’s hay bales stacked up front displaying pumpkins, big orange ones and knobby mottled green ones and pale, squat white ones with protuberant ribs. I pass these and head to the back, where they keep their camping equipment; it’s on clearance, lingering remnants of a long-past Labor Day sale. I pick up two large blue tarpaulins and a sleeping bag.
There’s a small section of toys near the register, so I pick out a little plush toy from the shelf — gray and black, shaped clumsily like a roadrunner with the New Mexico zia symbol stitched into its breast and two long, floppy legs. I pay for the supplies, grimacing at the cost.
But it’s an investment.
I hope.
I don’t drive all the way out to the camp. Instead, I stop off just off the road, far enough from the highway that curious onlookers won’t easily see what I’m doing. But far enough, too, that it’s clear I’m not trying to invade on the Undead’s territory. I lay out my supplies and weight them down with a heavy rock, toeing it sideways first to check for any snakes hidden underneath and then laughing to myself at the absurdity of being afraid of a rattlesnake right now. As if my blood were not already thick sludge in my veins. As if my heart wasn’t already rhythm-optional.
I write a note and slip it into a plastic bag, sliding it down into the doughy rolls of the sleeping bag: Maybe we can help each other. Tell me what you n
eed.
***
I’m not expecting Chuy to answer, but I text him anyway: Hey. In the neighborhood. Want to meet up?
But he does reply, and fast; my phone’s vibrating before I have the chance to put it back in my pocket. It just says: Casino?
***
The casino is out past the Lazarus House, just inside the borders of the reservation. Midday on a weekday, it’s pretty empty — mostly old folks gambling their Social Security checks. But as a meeting place, it has a few distinct advantages. One: It’s loud. Every machine makes a different noise, clicking and tapping and chiming and blaring, and the speakers pipe in Golden Oldies to appease the retirees. The Platters are crooning “The Great Pretender” over scratchy speakers when I walk in.
Another advantage: You can smoke inside, and nobody really cares much about loitering. Especially on a weekday. Aside from old folks feeding money into machines, there’s usually a few people lingering inside for free drinks and shelter from the weather. Nobody tends to pay them that much mind as long as they don’t bother anyone and pretend to be interested in the slots when someone walks by.
Today, I guess we get to be those people.
There’s a part of the casino filled with older, less popular games tucked away in a corner. Nobody’s back there today, so that’s where I arrange to meet Chuy, grabbing an ash tray and camping in front of a machine with a buffalo theme. The machine next to it is vaguely Halloweeny, with symbols like a bandaged mummy and a zombie with an exposed brain. I turn my back to it on principle and light a cigarette.
“You a gambler?” Chuy asks by way of greeting as he pulls out a chair two machines down, settling in like he’s thinking of playing.
“No,” I admit. “As a rule, never.”
