by Cross, Amy
“You've been saying that for a long time.”
“We're all going through a lot,” he says. “If she finds out now, it could finish her off. She's struggling so much already and we don't know how she'd react if she found out about...”
His voice trails off.
“The truth?” the woman asks pointedly.
“Let's just wait a while longer,” the man continues. “It's not as if we actually know what to tell her, we don't know everything ourselves. I've been looking around this place, hoping to find a radio, but there's nothing. Whoever lives here, when they come back, they might know more than we do. And until that happens, I really don't see the point in causing Sammy any unnecessary stress.” He pauses. “Let's protect our daughter for a little while longer, okay?”
I hear the woman sigh.
“It'll be okay,” the man adds. “All of it. It'll blow over, and it'll get better. I promise. I mean, it can't get worse, can it? The only way from here is up.”
“And what about the plan?” she asks.
“What about it?”
“You haven't talked about it much lately.”
“That's because there's nothing to talk about,” he says firmly. “Nothing's changed. We just have to find the right moment. I know it's hard, but I'll help you stay strong. And when the moment does arrive... I promise you, it'll be okay. We have each other, and that's all we need.”
“I wish words could make everything better,” she replies, “but they can't. I think we have to face the possibility that...”
Her voice trails off.
“It'll be fine,” the man says. “Just wait and see. We can't give up, not yet.”
I wait, and then I hear the sound of footsteps walking away, heading back toward the lighthouse. Only one set, though, which means that one of them's still nearby. Sure enough, a moment later the woman steps around the outhouse and heads over toward the edge of the path that runs down to the shore. As she stops and looks out at the sea, I squeeze myself further down between the crates. I'm still pretty sure that I can stay hidden, but I'd definitely like this Wendy woman to not be standing quite so close.
Come on, just leave already.
As the minutes pass, however, I realize that she still seems to be there. I don't dare to check, just in case I get spotted, but a moment later I feel and hear my stomach rumbling.
I try to pull my belly in, to stop the noise, but it lasts for a few more seconds. Still, I doubt it was loud enough for someone else to hear.
I wait.
What's she doing?
Is she still just staring out at the sea? I'd have heard if she's walked back toward the lighthouse, but I'm starting to wonder whether she might have gone down toward the beach itself. I still don't dare to take a look, and I can't shake the feeling that these people are starting to feel quite at home. If they don't leave soon, I really will have to give serious thought to the idea of making my presence known. Earlier, that seemed like a distant possibility, but now -
Suddenly the woman steps into view and stares straight down at me. Shocked, I don't know how to react, but then she takes a step back.
And she screams.
Elizabeth
“I'm so sorry,” Wendy says a short while later, as we sit at the table in the lighthouse's kitchen, “again, you have to believe me, I don't know why I reacted like that and -”
“It's fine,” I say, interrupting her. “I get it, I look...”
My voice trails off. Even though Wendy hasn't actually said it in so many words, I totally understand that she initially thought I might be a zombie. I've got a lot of cuts and marks, and I don't exactly look healthy, and I guess screaming is a pretty natural reaction to my current appearance.
“How long did you say you've been here, again?” Patrick asks.
Turning, I see that he's watching from the doorway.
“A few months,” I explain. “It's hard to be sure, I haven't exactly been keeping a diary.”
“And you've survived by eating seagulls and berries?”
“A little more than that, but those are the main things.” I pause, and to be honest I really want to just ask these people to leave. The problem is, I have no right to do that. “It's not easy, but I get by.”
“Where's Sammy?” Wendy asks.
“Still back at the boat,” Patrick says cautiously as he keeps his eyes fixed on me. “Elizabeth, we sent our daughter to fetch a few things. Before she gets back, we need to ask you a favor. While we're here, can you not mention the zombies to her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that we've tried to shield her from the worst of what's happening,” he continues. “When the shit hit the fan, we set off on the boat. We thought it'd only take a few days for things to get back to normal, but clearly that isn't how things worked out. We started off in Jonesport, Maine, and ever since then we've been going back and forth along the coast. Whenever we come to land for supplies, we make Sammy stay onboard for her own safety. We only let her come up with us this time because, well...”
“She'd get suspicious if we never let her come,” Wendy says. “Even from the boat, it looked as if this place was pretty safe.”
“We're not asking you to lie to her,” Patrick adds, “only to... omit a few details, if she asks you. We want her to still have hope.”
“She thinks this is just a major outbreak of a disease,” Sammy explains. “Like flu, really. We don't want her to have to come to terms with the fact that pretty much all her friends and family are most likely dead.”
“Do you really think she hasn't figured that out by now?” I ask. “Doesn't she wonder why there's no internet? Doesn't she ask why you never see planes flying overhead?”
“We know she has to learn the truth eventually,” Patrick says, “but we're going to wait until there's some hope first. Are you sure that Manhattan's gone? Is it possible that you made a mistake?”
“It's been flattened,” I tell him, and I have to admit that I'm a little annoyed by his constant attempts to be optimistic about everything. “I think Boston's pretty much the same. I heard Chicago's in a bad way too. The zombies seemed to be going away for a while, but then they seemed to come back with a vengeance. I have no idea if there's any kind of government left, or -”
Suddenly I gasp as I feel another flicker of pain in my left forearm. I grab my left wrist, and I wait as the pain throbs for a moment and then begins to fade away.
“I can look at that for you,” Wendy says. “I'm a doctor. Or, I was a doctor.”
“You still are,” Patrick says firmly. “And when all of this goes back to normal, you'll be a doctor again.”
She sighs.
“My wife doesn't see things the way I do,” Patrick continues. “She doesn't believe in the inherent stickiness of the human race. In the idea that, no matter how bad things might seem, we'll always find a way to push on through.”
“I just try to be rational,” Wendy explains. “With every day that passes, it becomes less likely that things are going to get back to normal. We've barely left the boat, Elizabeth, but the things you told us make it pretty clear that nobody's coming to the rescue. There's a boatyard that we keep going back to, whenever we need more fuel, but eventually that's going to run out. I don't know what we'll do then.”
“We'll do what we always do,” Patrick says. “We'll survive.”
“And what about...”
Wendy hesitates, but there's fear in her eyes and for a moment she seems unable to finish the sentence. Finally she looks away, and I swear it's as if she's terrified of something she can't quite explain.
“The important thing,” Patrick adds, coming over to join us at the table, “is that Sammy mustn't find out about the zombies. I'm sorry, Elizabeth, you might think that we're being overprotective or that it's wrong of us to lie to her, but I'd like to remind you that it's our decision. She's our daughter, and we know what's best for her.” He pauses, before putting a hand on his wife's shoulde
r. “Isn't that right, darling?”
“Sure,” Wendy replies, although she seems less than convinced.
“And we'll be out of your hair in a day or two,” Patrick says. “Is that okay, Elizabeth? Do you mind us taking a small pit-stop here?”
“Of course not,” I lie, figuring that I'm outnumbered, and that I don't really have any right to the lighthouse. Sure, these people could sleep on their boat, but apparently they want to stay with me. “Make yourselves at home.”
***
A few minutes later, as I limp away from the lighthouse, I feel as if my head is filled with questions. If these people really don't want their daughter to know about the zombies, then why did they come ashore with her today? And why's it so important that Sammy remains in the dark, anyway? How can she stay in the dark? Surely she must realize, by now, that something's seriously wrong with the world. Frankly, Patrick and Wendy's explanations really don't make a whole lot of sense.
Stopping suddenly, I realize I can hear a faint clicking, squawking sound coming from around the far side of one of the outhouses. I hesitate, and then – hearing Sammy's voice as well – I wander over to see what's happening.
As soon as I go around to the outhouse's other side, I see the horrific truth.
Sammy's sitting cross-legged on the grass, and she's holding a seagull. Or, rather, she's torturing the poor thing. As the bird struggles in her grip, Sammy digs a knife into its chest just a little more, as if she's enjoying the sight of the seagull desperately trying to escape. In fact, she's so caught up in what she's doing, she doesn't even seem to have noticed that I'm here.
I flinch as the seagull lets out another pained cry.
Blood is running down Sammy's hands.
“What are you doing?” I ask finally, before I really have a chance to stop myself.
She looks up at me, and for a moment her expression seems curiously blank.
“Oh,” she says after a few seconds, “sorry, I'm just playing.”
“Playing?”
She looks back down at the seagull, and then she sets it on the ground. The poor bird is so badly injured now, it can only flap around helplessly. One of its wings is completely broken and twisted, and the other seems to have been torn, and after a moment I notice that one of its legs has been cut away to leave only a bloodied stump.
“They're so funny, aren't they?” Sammy continues, her voice filled with wonder. “I could watch them all day.”
I open my mouth to answer, but I'm not really sure what to say. After a few seconds, however, I limp forward and crouch down, and then I grab the seagull and break its neck with such force that its head actually twists away and comes off in my hands.
Sammy immediately bursts out laughing.
I set the remains of the bird on the ground. I'm horrified by what just happened, but at least the seagull's dead now.
“Did you see that?” Sammy guffaws. “Its head just came away! I didn't know you could do that! Let's find some more and do it again! I saw loads of them earlier, over by the edge of the cliff, it can't be hard to catch more of them. This one was already injured, but I bet with two of us it'll be easy to grab them!”
She scrambles to her feet and grabs my arm, trying to haul me up. I resist, but she pulls harder.
“Come on!” she says firmly. “I want to go and do it again!”
“No,” I stammer, looking up at her grinning face, “sorry, not right now.”
“Why not?”
“I'm just busy, that's all,” I reply, getting to my feet. There's blood on my hands, and I'm starting to get a very strange vibe from this girl. “I have a lot of -”
“Come on!”
Grabbing my arm, she again tries to pull me forward. I hold firm, and she pulls harder, and then she grabs my other arm and forces me to take a stumbling, limping step after her. I manage to grab hold of the side of the outhouse, and now Sammy lets out an angry grunt as she tries again and again to force me to go with her. Finally, somehow, I manage to slip free.
“What's wrong with you?” she snaps. “I want to go and find more seagulls!”
“I'm not coming,” I tell her, a little breathlessly. “I need to -”
Before I can finish, she throws herself at me, slamming me against the wall as she leans closer with a snarl.
“What's wrong with you?” she sneers. “Why don't you want to have fun? All I want is to go and have fun, why are you stopping me?”
“I -”
Suddenly she grabs my throat and starts squeezing. I try to push her away, but it's as if she's suddenly filled with a whole new level of strength. I start gasping and spluttering, and I try to call for help, but then a moment later she lets go and steps back, leaving me to stumble a few steps away.
“I'm sorry,” she says as she gets her breath back, “I shouldn't have done that. You just made me really mad there for a moment. People do that, and they don't understand why I get upset, but it's not my fault. I can't help it.” She looks down at the dead seagull, and now the dazed, glassy expression is returning to her eyes. It's as if that brief eruption of anger has helped her to calm down. “I can't believe the way you twisted its head off,” she continues. “I had no idea that was possible. They're so weak and defenseless, aren't they? It's amazing that they manage to survive at all.”
Rubbing the side of my neck, I wait in case she decides to attack again. I look around, but there's nothing here that I can use as a weapon.
“I'm going to go for a walk,” she says, turning and wandering away, before stopping and glancing back at me. “Can I ask you a favor, Elizabeth? Can you not tell my parents about what just happened? They'd just get angry, they wouldn't understand, and I promise it won't ever happen again.”
“Sure,” I murmur, so that she won't get angry.
She smiles, and for a moment it's the sweetest, most innocent smile I've ever seen. Then she walks away, humming to herself as she disappears past the outhouse.
My first instinct is to run back to the lighthouse and tell Patrick and Wendy what happened, but I've got a feeling they might not be too shocked. The last thing I want to do is make Sammy angry again, so I guess my best shot is to just wait until tomorrow and hope that they leave. I can't find a new place to live, not again, I need to stay here at the lighthouse, and hopefully Patrick and Wendy will keep their promise and get out of here. They might be nice on the outside, but I've got a feeling that this seemingly perfect family is hiding some pretty dark secrets.
Day 352
Thomas
Somewhere in the distance, but still inside this place, somebody's screaming.
Opening my eyes, I immediately realize that I have to stay conscious. I've woken up here before, several times at least, with my face pressed against the concrete, but each time I ended up passing out again after a few seconds. This time, then, I force my eyes to stay open, even as I feel exhaustion and pain trying to drag me back down. I try to sit up, but my body simply won't move, so I take a moment and try to find the strength to move.
“Hey,” a voice says nearby, “you're awake. Good.”
I blink a couple of times, and finally I find myself face to face with a pretty, smiling woman.
“You suffered a bit of a nasty bump to the head,” she explains, “but nothing too bad. You'll be fine. And you're far from the first person to put up a bit of a struggle on their way here.”
“Where am I?” I stammer, looking around and finding myself in a large, white-walled room.
“You're in Philly,” she replies. “Specifically, you're in my office. My name is Lucy Hoyle, and I'm here to make sure that you're all okay. Are you hungry?”
“Martha,” I whisper, looking around again but seeing no sign of anyone else. “Where's my sister?”
“Who?”
“My sister!” I try again to get up, but I'm still too weak. “Her name's Martha Edgewater! Where is she?”
“I can certainly find out for you.”
“And Katrina!”
“I haven't heard about a -”
“And Riley!”
I try once again to sit up, but again I fail. I don't quite understand what's wrong with me, except that I feel as if all the strength has been drained from my body. I actually feel a little unsteady, and it takes a few more seconds before my mind really kicks properly into gear.
“Riley's gone,” I whisper, remembering that he simply disappeared. “I want to see Martha right now! And Katrina too!”
“And you -”
“Katrina's pregnant,” I add. “I have to make sure that she's safe.”
“Pregnant?” This seems to get the woman's attention, and she pauses for a moment. “Wait right here, and I'll go see what I can find out. By the way, what's your name?”
“Thomas,” I tell her.
“Welcome to the city, Thomas,” she says with a smile. “I think you're going to fit in real well around here.”
***
“Your sister Martha has been moved to a more appropriate location,” Lucy explains a short while later, as she makes some notes on a piece of paper. “She's fine, and you'll be able to see her soon. I just need to run a few more tests on you first.”
“What kind of tests?” I ask.
I've finally managed to get to my feet, but I still feel as if I might topple over at any moment. Lucy Hoyle seems nice enough, but this whole set-up is making me worried and I can't shake the feeling that I'm not allowed to leave. I haven't tried yet, of course, since I won't want to arouse suspicions. After all, I might be wrong, and these people might be really friendly. If that's the case, though, why did those assholes in the camper van bring us to them?
“You really don't need to exert yourself,” Lucy mutters. “I strongly recommend that you take a moment to rest. You've been through a great deal and it'll take time for your body to repair itself.”
“I don't feel right.”
“That'll be the drugs I gave you.” She glances at me with a smile. “See? At least when I do borderline unethical things, I'm honest. There are so many people out there who pretend that they're your best friend, and all the while they're working against you. The way things are at the moment, it's really important to know exactly where you stand.” She pauses. “You were agitated when you came here, and I sedated you. Don't you remember any of that?”
