by Shana Festa
I looked at the photo again, ruminating over this new information. Lola was lovely. Not traditionally beautiful, but the kind of girl next door attractive. Light brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and thick-framed glasses over brown eyes smiled into the camera, and my heart ached for Striker's loss.
"Jasper, why did Striker leave?"
"I don't know. He didn't say goodbye to me and it made me sad. I miss him."
I tried another tactic. "When did he leave?"
"After the bonfire, I think. Our rooms were next to each other, and he came to say goodnight. He always said goodnight to me. It kept the bad dreams away. Then every morning, we ate breakfast together before work, except the next day he didn't come to eat, and his room was empty."
I handed the photo back to him, taking one last look at the smiling trio. "Hey!" he blurted, getting to his feet. "Why don't I go get my camera and we can take a picture of us? You and me and Jake and Meg."
The mention of Jake reminded me that I hadn't seen him anywhere that morning. He'd been gone when I woke up, after camping out in one of the empty beds near Meg, and he wasn't at breakfast. When I asked Meg if she knew where he'd run off to, she had no idea either.
"Now's not a good time," I admitted. He looked crestfallen at my refusal and I quickly explained that we would definitely take a photo with him later. "Have you seen Jake this morning?"
"Yup! He went to work with the other guys."
"Where did they go?" A knot was forming in the pit of my stomach.
Jasper shrugged, "I dunno. Wherever they usually go to work. We all do our jobs. It's in the rules."
I narrowed my eyes. "Where can I find these rules?" I asked him.
He reached into his other back pocket and waved a piece of folded paper in front of him. "Right here!" He said excitedly. "I have them! Striker wrote them down for me so I could never forget and break the rules. I read them every morning before breakfast."
I put out my hand and he placed the wrinkled page in my palm. It was damp, and I did my best not to think too hard about why that was.
"Rule one:" I read aloud, "we all do our jobs." Jasper bobbed his head and mouthed the words from memory as I recited the list. "Rule two: stay out of the basement. Rule three: don't go outside the gate alone."
He interrupted me after rule three. "I'm allowed to break that one, because I clean up the bad people every day. So I'm allowed to go outside the gate if I promise to stay on the path in front of the wall and only go as far as the bonfire." I had to smile at how proud he was of himself that he was allowed to break a rule.
I continued reading. "Rule four: no dogs at the table. Are you fucking joking? It's an actual rule?"
"Ooh," sung Jasper, "you said a bad word."
"Sorry, bud, sometimes I can't help myself."
"It's okay. I won't tell on you."
Christ, would I find no swearing in the rules next?
I skimmed the list, quickly looking for mention of bad words and was thankful to not find any. I'd be out on my ass pretty fast if that had been written into the bylaws. The rest of the list was as expected. No stealing, fighting, raping, hoarding supplies. The last rule, though, made me uncomfortable. "Council to pass sentence on rule-breakers."
"Yeah, I don't like that rule. The council is scary," he admitted.
The metallic clang of a bear trap announced the arrival of an unlucky walker at the front gate, and I heard Vance call out for Jasper.
"Time to go to work," he said, and left with a lopsided grin.
Vance waved to me and I returned the greeting, but my mind was elsewhere. I was stuck on the last rule, and I was irate with my husband for breaking our own rules. We'd made a pact not to go anywhere without each other. Not only did he leave, but he did so without telling me or his sister. If anything happened to him, I'd have to live with our last conversation consisting of my telling him to fuck off. Could I live with myself if that were the case?
I walked over to the two banyan trees, the trunks had intertwined themselves with each other, forming cohesive roots that crawled outward in front of them. The roots felt smooth under my touch, and I tapped on one of the hanging vines and watched it sway lazily back and forth.
The trees were like a family, no one trunk stood alone, and they all had connections to one another. I missed my family. Not just the emotional distance that was growing between Jake and I, but my parents, and his parents, and Vinny. Tears stung my cheeks and I let myself wallow in my sadness and loss.
Because of their beauty, the wall spanning this side of the mansion had been notched years before to allow visitors access to the great trees. The interlocking trunks created a natural barrier the undead couldn't get through, and I felt safe in the shade of the branches that loomed above. Light filtered through what few breaks were still visible, and I saw some scratches on a few of the larger trunks. Taking a closer look, I discovered people had carved their initials into the bark as far back as 1952. JR+EF. My heart pummeled against the wall of my chest at the initials and I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the trunk, pretending the initials belonged to Jake and I. Jake Rossi + Emma Ford. My Jake, pre-apocalypse Jake would have found the symbolism romantic.
* * *
I heard Boss barking from where Tom worked with him and Daphne, and I smiled at the sound before remembering the only other time I'd heard the dog utter a peep. I spun, instantly on alert and scanned the lawn for zombies. Nothing looked out of place—other than Boss running full speed in my direction.
The thought that I might have been in danger occurred a split second before I felt the first tug on my hair.
"Ow! What the hell?" I exclaimed.
A zombie had stuck its decrepit hand through a small gap in the wooded area behind me and wrapped its gnarled fingers into my hair. I screamed, an earth-shattering, blood-curdling shriek that got the attention of every man, woman, and child outside and sent them running in my direction.
My head slammed against the tree while the creature's teeth snapped shut inches behind me, and I heard the most terrifying sound possible: splintering wood. I was afraid to grab the hair at the base of my scalp for fear that the zombie would latch onto my fingers. Lightning bolts of white, hot pain blinded me and my scalp felt like it would tear away under the resistance.
Boss reached the tree and leapt in the air, snarling and snapping at my attacker. "Boss, off!" commanded Tom, who had reached me, and took up position where the dog had just vacated.
"Help me!" I screamed, sobbing from both pain and crippling fear.
"I can't get to it," Tom said to the black-clad man trying to maneuver around my other side.
"Shit!" I heard him shout. "The space is too narrow to get a knife through."
More splintering came from the space behind me, putting the gnashing teeth that much closer to my flesh, and I continued to scream.
"Cover your ears," shouted Tom. "Emma, cover your ears now!" He shook me and I did what he said.
A moment later a sonic boom exploded on my right and my knees gave out from under me. I hung by my hair, disoriented and dazed, with a deafening ring emanating from inside my head. I heard the others shouting but couldn't make out what they were saying; everything except the ringing was muffled.
One second I was suspended by my hair, the next I was falling into someone's arms. Before identifying who held me though, I blacked out.
The first thing I did when I woke was cup my hands over my ears in an attempt to lessen the ringing. The second thing I did was roll onto my side and vomit profusely into the grass. The third thing I did—I'm not ashamed to admit it—was cry like a baby.
I squinted, opening one eye, and saw a lot of feet. Kneeling next to me was Dr. Chen. He saw me looking at him and said something I didn't understand.
"What?" I asked. My voice sounded like a fun-house mirror, assuming it had sound effects. He shook his head at me.
Meg stooped down to my level and said something else I couldn't underst
and. Only, her voice sounded like a high pitched warble. Someone had hefted me up and carried me into the house and up to my fourth floor penthouse closet. In between the raging stabs of pain, I felt sympathy for whoever drew the short straw on that one. Those stairs sucked just carrying my own body weight. I couldn't imagine the exertion carrying someone else would require.
Dr. Chen put two tablets in my hand. The first I recognized as Vicodin, and I swallowed before Meg had gotten back with a glass of water from the bathroom sink. I didn't know what the second pill was though, and I knew enough not to take medicine without knowing what it was for. He saw my hesitance and mouthed the word Reglan. I repeated it back to him and waited until he confirmed I had it right before sticking it on my tongue and washing it down with warm water. I would have much preferred the anti-nausea medication via injection, but beggars couldn't be choosers.
Meg tucked me in like a toddler and stayed in the room until I fell asleep. When I reentered the land of the living, she was still in the room, but her attention was focused on her new bestie, Jahayra—she preferred Jah—sitting on the bed next to her.
I groaned, and they both jumped up and scurried to my side. "Say something," I said to Meg, "softly."
"Can you understand me?" she asked, barely above a whisper.
"Yes, but fuck, this ringing is killing me."
"Dr. Chen said the ringing will be there a while, and that you'll likely have some long-term tinnitus."
"Joy," I grumbled.
I touched the back of my scalp tentatively, not sure if I'd find chunks of skin missing or not. My hair felt weird, and I looked quizzically up at Meg, who in turn winced back at me.
"Yeah," she drew out, "about that. When they shot the zombie it kind of wouldn't let go."
"I don't get it," I replied. My brain was still muddled from the narcotic, and she wasn't making sense.
She grimaced, and tightened her fingers into a claw. "It kind of had a death grip on your hair when it died."
I was missing something important here, I just knew it.
Jah rolled her eyes and blurted, "Oh, for crying out loud. They had to cut your hair because the thing wouldn't let go."
"Okay, so they cut my hair. Wait a minute." I felt around at the bristled ends and finally got it. "Oh, my God! They cut my hair!"
"That's what I just said," she replied, rolling her eyes like I was a dunce.
"Outta the way!" I pushed them aside and lurched into the bathroom to assess the damage in the mirror. My tortured cry was strangled in my throat when I saw the ragged edges of a missing chunk of hair that stopped just below my neck. A section of my long hair was missing. My hair, that I had always taken such pride in, was gone in back, and the sides hung down past my bra like Goofy ears.
Meg stood in the doorway behind me, and I glared at her reflection in the mirror. She had the decency to look ashamed, even though I knew it wasn't her fault.
"At least you're alive," she offered.
"True, but now I feel like killing someone."
Jah popped her head into the door, smiling. "I can fix it," she said.
I doubted it, unless she had lots of extensions and magic pixie dust to root them to my head.
Chapter 21: Sanctimonious Prick
Florida winter was in full swing, and we were into sweater weather. I pulled my scarf up to my chin and slurped beef stew from my spoon.
"Hard to believe it's February already," mused Tom beside me. Daphne and Boss were pecking away at their kibble on the patio next to us. It took the little princess a few days to accept defeat about not having the luxury of eating people food anymore, but she'd stopped whining about it and chomped happily away at the hard little kernels.
I gave him a snide glare. "Yeah, time really flies when you're having fun."
He snickered at my quip. "What's the matter, don't like playing Alice to Mack's Brady Bunch?"
I rolled my eyes at him and swapped the spoon into my other hand while I tucked the freezing appendage under my armpit to warm up. My mood was crap, and I didn't feel much like talking. Instead, I reflected on my current predicament.
We'd been residents of Asylum for three weeks. Meg and Jake settled in well, and I think they actually liked it there. My sister-in-law was content with her monotonous job of cleaning up after people, and Jake quickly assimilated into the jock's group who called themselves the Guard.
I ate outside with Tom and the dogs, most days, today included, freezing my ass off. But when it came down to it, I preferred their company over most others. Some days Meg joined us, but they were infrequent. I peered through the window at the jock's table where Jake now sat. Of the ninety meals we'd had since arriving, I could count on one hand the number of times Jake and I had eaten at the same table.
I caught sight of Meg and smiled sadly when she threw her head back, laughing at a joke I couldn't hear. Jah wasn't lying when she said she could fix my hair. Cutting my long locks was liberating, and I felt like it afforded me the opportunity to become a new person. Michele had been right, Meg and Jah got along famously, and I was glad she had made a new friend. Even though I was secretly jealous at how easy it had been for her to fit in while I felt like a jilted leper.
From what little time I'd spent with Jah, she struck me as a good person. I couldn't quite put my finger on it—not like I'd given it much thought—but there was something about her. She was female, there was no question about it, but very masculine in both her mannerisms and physical features. Her voice was lower than I expected, and I could swear she had a small Adam's apple.
Jah had a fantastic sense of humor, and I enjoyed bantering with her. I ribbed her about her name.
"Call me Jah," she'd told me as she worked on my traumatized hair.
"Jar?" I asked, faking a confused expression. "Okay, if you insist. Jar it is."
"Not Jarrrr," she emphasized, drawing out the R at the end. "Jah—like La."
"Nope, sorry. You will forever be Jar to me now."
So now whenever I addressed her, I made sure to really give that R some oomph.
My marriage wasn't doing so hot. Jake had become distant, and he snapped at me when I tried to talk to him about it. The day I'd been nearly zombie-chow at the banyan tree, he came back to the mansion and ran upstairs to make sure I was okay. But instead of doting on me compassionately, he scolded me for putting myself in that situation.
There had been no sexy-time for us since we'd arrived in Sarasota, and most nights we didn't even share a bed. More and more lately, Jake found an excuse to stay up late and I'd wake up to find he'd either woken early and slipped out quietly or slept elsewhere. He'd changed the day Vinny died, become someone I didn't know, or like, very much. But I still loved my husband and wanted things to go back to normal.
I'd lost nearly everyone in my life in the last four months, and the only thing that had kept me putting one foot in front of the other was knowing that I still had Jake. Jake, who had surprised me with bike rides to the beach on warm afternoons. Jake, who cuddled on the sofa with me and watched funny Vince Vaughn movies. Not the stranger I saw when I looked at him now.
I heard people whispering about us, felt their pitying glances when my back was turned. In a house where more than two-hundred people lived on top of each other, not even the health of my marriage was sacred. So I kept to myself. I went about my days doing laundry and cleaning toilets in misery.
On a much happier note, Tom had done wonders with Daphne. To my amazement, she actually listened to me when I gave her a command now. And, the best part of it all, she didn't spaz when I left her alone. That's not to say she still didn't attack me with affection at every available opportunity, because she did, and I ate up every minute of it. After the first week of working with her solo, Tom had started working with both of us. It was a nice respite from the bottom of a toilet bowl.
It dawned on me early on that there were no elderly people at Asylum. Not only that, but there were no sick or physically handicapped either. I ke
pt the observation to myself, but it had me curious. It would be presumptuous to assume that not a single old person had survived. I guess I could see the difficulty in outrunning a herd of undead without the use of legs, but still, not a single survivor with any mobility issues?
On the outside, I played Asylum's game. I was a good little worker bee and poured on the charm when Mack was around, even though I knew the man despised me. Even though I knew I would never steal the title of best friend from Striker, Jasper held that title for me. Being around him made me feel good, and I noticed he was almost invisible to the others, like a fixture. When I was with him, I felt invisible, too. I guess I'd changed just as much as everyone else. In my past life, I reveled in being the center of attention and leading, not following.
Now, I flew under the radar. At least that's what I wanted them to think. I knew something bad was going on under our noses, and I was still hell bent on finding out what it was. If making nice-nice was what it took to find out, so be it.
* * *
"Hello," Tom knocked his knuckles against the top of my head. "Earth to, Emma. Come in, Emma."
"What? Oh, sorry, I was just thinking."
"Don't hurt yourself."
"Ha ha, very funny, wise guy."
"As I was saying," he continued. "You'll be dining alone tomorrow. Me and Boss are headed out with the Guard to the Hospital."
"What is Mack thinking?" Panic rose in my throat and my brain cycled through every bad scenario. "Sarasota Hospital is like five miles from here. Not to mention, hospitals are a death trap."
"No idea. He found me this morning and asked me to go out with them for some extra security. By asked, of course, I mean told me we were going."
He stroked Boss' fur absently. Worry lines formed on his forehead.
