by Lia Habel
I laughed. The sound gurgled out of my chest. “Understand? Understand you? You want to torment my daughter! She’s an innocent girl! She doesn’t even know that I’m still alive!”
Averne drifted away from me again. His movements were bizarre—fluid, but almost disjointed. I’d never seen a fellow zombie move the way he moved. “Innocent?” He kicked a piece of wood out of the way, and it cracked in two against the wall. “My children were innocent!”
“You’re a monster!” I cried.
Averne’s eyes, in the lowering light, had ceased to shine, leaving me with the sensation of interacting with a sort of golem. “Monster?” he asked with a sudden clarity of voice. “I’m the monster? I have proof that you created the disease.” Averne nodded, as if his own statement might have been something he’d not considered before. “I must say, I’ve learned much, studying the files that Wolfe provided me. You have a much better understanding of the disease than anyone. How could you not be its creator? I engaged in experimentation myself, you see, but …” He waved an arm. “You see what I have to work with.”
My soul screamed at me not to ask. “Experimentation?”
He nodded absently, as if he’d already forgotten what he was going to say. “Yes. My men helped me, of course. They sparred with the undead at my bidding, so that I could see how they fought. They were bit at my bidding, so I could see how the disease progressed.” He shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing a patriot wouldn’t do to protect his tribe.”
Out of the ordinary? “You sacrificed your own men?”
He advanced on me again. “They were mine to sacrifice!” He tossed his hands skyward. “I joined the Punk army when I was but a boy. I thought I was doing my country a service. Instead, what do I see? Brave men, dying at the hands of their own countrymen. Proud men, reduced to fighting for a few yards of dirt—only to have your people take them back again. And then, then, when your monsters started attacking us and the idiots in command started allowing for temporary truces? That was it. I took my loyal men and I left.”
He got what he wished for most, then—I understood. I could see, in my mind’s eye, the disgraced major and his own private army, a one-man secession, constantly on the move. I saw his army decimated, destroyed by his madness and his interaction with the dead, until he was king of a heap of charnel house bones. Who knows how much of it was true and how much of it was my imagination? Did it matter?
Understanding did not equal acceptance.
I looked to the communications equipment on the table again. “Wolfe’s been equipping you, then?”
“Yes.” He twisted his fingers together. “My men and I built this base. Think of it. All around us, people are fighting, living, moving … but who would brave a desert of salt? Wolfe even arranged for my troops to be smuggled into New London in city vehicles. I do so love hiding things right out in the open.”
“So, you’re still in contact with your troops in New London?”
Averne glanced at me. “No. It would be suicide to have them transmit to me from the center of your city. Too easily traced. But that doesn’t matter. You see, Doctor, a virtue that my people possess—that I don’t think your people do—is the ability to participate in the grandest schemes imaginable with only a handful of nuts and bolts and a little ingenuity.”
I was silent for a while, before simply asking a very logical question. “How do you know they’re doing what you want, then?”
When I was a wee lad in school, I used to get my jollies by confronting my professors with facts that ran completely contrary to what they were trying to hammer into our thick skulls. Their expressions of bafflement and anger had never failed to amuse me. As comprehension sank in, and Averne started to rail and to beat me, I was laughing, wishing more than anything that I could see his face.
“They’ve done it!” he was shouting. “Oh, believe me, they’ve done it! Everyone you ever knew, ever loved, ever passed on the streets, will be dead within a week!”
“And then they’ll move on to your people!” I retaliated, hugging my arms around my chest. “They’ll devour your people! And then they’ll find a way—I know this sounds insane, but trust me—they’ll find a way to travel to Africa, and they’ll start the whole thing over again there! I don’t believe—I really can’t believe, sir, that you have thought your cunning plan all the way through!”
He left off, striding over to the other end of the longhouse with a roar. My body was still shaking with laughter. I fought in several gulps of air and tried to move my ribs back into position.
Oh, I’d needed that. It put the entire thing into perspective. He didn’t have Nora, not yet. He had no control over his own troops. I could work with this.
Henry stirred beside me and slowly opened his eyes. “Wh—”
“Lie still,” I whispered. “Don’t move your head. The bombs are there.”
His eyes widened. “Not … m-more …”
“Just don’t move your head.”
If fortune was on my side, paranoia would drive Averne to try and make contact with Wolfe. It would be exactly the distraction I needed.
Averne left us alone, rambling to himself, ticking back and forth across the floor like a clock’s pendulum. A few hours later, when the door opened, I could see the night sky outside. I thought of Elizabeth again, and closed my eyes. When I made it to heaven—if I made it to heaven—I had so much to apologize for.
The smell of cooked meat brought me back to the present.
One of the guards entered, his pike on his back. He was bearing a tin plate with several cuts of charred meat on it. He placed it on the table and grunted something to Averne.
“Get out,” Averne spat.
I didn’t need to question whether the meat was human. I knew it couldn’t be. The earth around me stilled as my brain kicked into overdrive. The way he moved, cooked meat—how had I not realized it before?
Averne, whatever his story was, was still alive.
The power came on a few times during the night, but we were in the dark again come Christmas Eve.
The current tragedy in Isambard’s universe was that I was being permitted to go to Midnight Mass with the rest of the family, and that my murderous presence would result in our sitting in the back of the church underneath the wooden balcony that held the seats of the aristocracy. Quite literally, beneath them. I wanted to tell him that he needn’t worry about God not seeing him there in the shadows, but I knew that he, like many Victorians, went to church mostly to be seen.
I, myself, had been praying since I’d awoken from my self-induced slumber. I had prayed in the bathtub, in my closet. My shoulders were fast on their way to becoming permanently bowed.
I prayed because I couldn’t get the Delgados out of my mind, and I needed to replace them with something else.
There’d been no further appearances of Mr. Delgado, the potentially sick fishmonger. I’d kept vigil at my window, waiting to see if he would come out again. I had nothing else to do, no task to set my sights on, and hours of empty time only fueled my obsession. I began to think that if I stepped away from the window for an instant to get a cup of water or a shawl, he’d appear and be gone before I could return to see him. Never mind the fact that if the ill could really move that fast, we’d all be goners by now.
When it came time to get ready for church, I dressed in my next best gown, the blue lawn. My mother had burned my new one. She didn’t even try to get the bloodstains out. I put no further thought into how I looked, and let my face remain unwashed and my straight hair unbraided. It was all starting to weigh down on me—the blade was dropping. The city was panicked. There’d been no news of Nora. Common sense told me that if I allowed myself to think that she was dead, I’d probably be doing my heart a favor—but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt like the ultimate betrayal.
I prayed as I waited for my father to call me downstairs.
We hailed a cab for the ride to the Cathedral of Our Mother. We s
at in silence, neither of my parents looking at me. I watched the city through the windows. Although there were people on the streets now, the crush was not as bad as it had been. That worried me.
The power was still on in the church district. The cathedral was opulent, everything on its exterior white and lovely. As my father helped my mother out of the carriage, I turned my attention to the statue above, which was highlighted by rows of electric bulbs at night. The Mother looked pensive. I understood how she felt.
I knew I was not to speak, or look at anyone. I trailed behind my parents, obeying the first order, but not the last. I swept my eyes over the massive crowd, looking for signs of sickness. I noticed that the altar boys and ushers were doing the same thing, a fact that offered me some comfort. I hoped everyone was all right—not only for our sakes, but for theirs. I truly, truly prayed that no one would suffer on this night, of all nights.
No one approached my family. No one even paid us much attention, although I caught one or two curious gazes. We found our seats, and the ceremony soon began. I knew it by heart; Mass was always the same. There were the prayers, the readings, the candles, the passing of the wine and bread. My attention drifted.
The hyperpresent twinkling of the flexible flat screen tapestries captivated me for a while. The longest one was hung behind the altar, and appeared to have been programmed with an embroidered manger scene. Altar boys occasionally disappeared behind it, into the huge vault that it obscured, a leftover from the cathedral’s previous life as a bank. It was used as a storage room now. The altar was set up where the teller counter used to be, centuries ago.
The priest droned on, and my thoughts floated back to my family. They were seated next to me; I could reach out and touch them. Yet, some nagging, tickling thing in my head told me all was not well, that we were in danger. Something had to be done, but I wasn’t sure what. Where would I even begin? My family seemed willing to buy what the news told them, even if my father played at tearing it apart, calling the government foolish, the reporters no better than ghouls. They probably wouldn’t even listen to anything I’d say anymore, they—
“Pamela?”
My mother was looking at me, her eyes dim with worry. Everyone around me had already stood up, and there was a crush at the back to exit the church. Mass was over. I hadn’t even noticed.
I rose to follow her. The same crowd that had sat sedately for the last hour, perhaps even derived comfort from doing so, was now frantic to get away. The rich were escorted to their carriages as if under gunfire, and people thronged the street to hail cabs. My father joined them, but after fifteen minutes of failed attempts it became clear he wasn’t going to get one.
“We’ll have to walk,” he said, tugging at his cravat.
Mom held onto Issy’s shoulder. “Are you certain it’s safe?”
“When we came through, the streets were fairly empty. If nothing else, we can start walking and look for a cab along the way.”
“Mother, Father …” I began. I wanted to tell them that what we should do was figure out what was going on, where we were going to go, what we were going to do—but the words stuck in my throat.
My father took my hand and started leading me down the street.
The trip seemed to last several lifetimes, when in reality it took only twenty minutes. Every shadow was an infected person waiting to leap out at me, to steal my flesh from me, my very breath. I almost ran after my parents, doing my best to keep myself physically close to them. An inch of space between them and me was not acceptable.
We passed a few people in the street, but no empty cabs. The people we did see we regarded with suspicion as one herd mind—I could see our heads turning at the same time. My mother clutched both Issy and me about the shoulders after a time, and I half felt forgiven. At least, I felt included.
Soon we were standing on our own stoop, my father sliding the house key off his watch chain, my mother’s arms relaxing. We’d made it. We were going to be fine.
That’s when I saw the girl.
Her diminutive shape caught my attention as I waited for my father to unlock the door, and I turned, my heart heavy with dread, to watch her as she crept closer to us. She was only about five years of age, her movements halting and clumsy. Her skin was sickly, her eyes speckled with white. Patches of her bread-crust-colored hair were missing. She wore a long plain dress with a sagging patch pocket on the front.
Bile rose in my throat and I backed up the stoop. I missed the next step up and ended up falling on my backside, knocking into Isambard. He caught himself on my mother’s jacket.
“Pam, what are—Oh, God!” Issy started screaming, and practically climbed over my mother to get closer to the door. My parents whirled around and cried out.
The little girl stopped in the street, fixing us with a look of almost palatable hurt. She started crying, little sobs that jerked her body in every direction.
I recognized her when I heard that cry. I’d heard it before, in the market, in the summer when the windows were open.
“Jenny Delgado?” I whispered.
“Open the door, open the door!” Isambard screamed.
“I can’t find my family!” Jenny wailed.
She spoke.
I hadn’t heard an ill person speak before.
I remained sitting, my joints locked, as I assessed the situation. The girl was obviously sick, but she could talk. She wasn’t attacking us.
“Are you Jenny Delgado?” I asked a bit louder. She nodded, crying still.
She also recognized her name. Maybe there was hope for her. I had to get her to her family, to the hospital. She needed to see a doctor.
Why I decided all this, I’ll never know. Perhaps, on this most holy of days, God was shining His mercy through me. Perhaps the alcohol I’d been using to get to sleep had killed some brain cells. I don’t know.
I slowly stood up. “Go inside and lock the door. I’m going to take her home.”
“Pamela, you’ll do no such thing,” my mother said. She was on the verge of tears herself. “Not again. Get inside.”
“No, I’m taking her home.”
“She’s ill!”
“I can see that, Mother. And that’s why she needs to go home.”
“Pam, are you that stupid?” my brother asked, in awe.
“She’s a little girl!” I turned my back on Jenny and looked up at my family. “She’s a little girl, and she’s lost, and she’s scared! Just like the rest of us!” In the theater of my mind I could see her father, a day ago, and her mother waiting for him at the door. I recognized now what I didn’t then—the lack of panic, the lack of violence.
Maybe they were okay after all. Maybe they were still sane.
Before I could protest further, Dad opened the door and moved down the stairs so quickly, it seemed he was trying to recover from tripping. He took my hand and pulled me toward him. His eyes were cold. “Do as your mother says.”
“Father—”
He waggled my arm back and forth. “Don’t make me tell you again! Look what happened the last time you didn’t do as you were told! Do you want to end up back in jail?”
My face flushed at the memory. I couldn’t argue with that—I knew I couldn’t. Reluctantly, I nodded my head and sidestepped him, following my mother and brother in their chaotic haste to get inside the house.
Glancing back at Jenny one last time, I saw that she was still standing there, watching me as she shook, her tearless eyes dim. They reminded me of the eyes of a homeless animal that had learned through harsh experience not to trust anyone but still instinctively held out hope. “I can’t find my family,” she tried again, voice small.
I couldn’t argue, but I could act.
Once we were inside, I fiddled about in the hall closet, waiting until my parents had retreated to the parlor and Issy to his room, before popping right back out the front door. Jenny was still there, and upon my reappearance, she uttered a chirp of joy.
I hurried down
the steps toward her, making shushing motions, which she seemed to both understand and obey. I didn’t dare offer her my hand, but I waved down one of the side streets. “Come on, Jenny. You live over here.”
She sniffled. “Really?”
“Yes, come along.” I was taking a stupid risk, and I might as well be quick about it.
We’d gone all of two yards when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I jumped and released a short, terrified scream before I realized that the hand belonged to my father. He’d followed me. Cringing, I waited for the scolding to begin.
My father, however, didn’t say a word. He didn’t even make eye contact with me. Instead he pushed me forward, indicating that I should continue. Gratitude almost overwhelmed me, and I had to blink to chase back tears.
We walked together in an uncomfortable silence. “Jenny,” I said after a moment, “how did you get outside?”
She gestured feebly with her pudgy, bruised little fingers. “Mama and Papa were in the kitchen, and Tata wasn’t there. I wanted to go. I went out the bad door, not the good door.”
I tried to process this. “Bad door? The front door?”
She nodded seriously. “Bad door.”
Made sense. She was probably allowed to go in the courtyard. “Do you know where … Tata went? Is that your grandfather?”
She nodded. “Tata! Tata went down.” She looked to the ground.
My father’s hand gripped my shoulder. “He’s … down?”
“Uh-huh.” She seemed unconcerned. Perhaps “down” meant something other than “dead,” which is what my brain wanted to put in place of it.
Their street, Halperin Street, was just as deserted as ours was. We led Jenny to the right building and up the front steps, where I glanced at my father. “We’d better ring, I guess.”
He pushed the button, wordlessly agreeing with me, though I was pretty sure I was going to have finger-shaped bruises on my shoulder come morning.
No one came to the door at first. We rang several more times, with no success. It was only once I banged on the door and called out, “We have Jenny, Mr. Delgado! Mrs. Delgado?” that I heard footsteps approaching. I took a step back.
