“They were,” William nods. “We talked with a doctor who ran tests and confirmed that. They had no pulse, no heartbeat, no brainwaves. They were most definitely fucking dead.”
“They were,” Dan says, repressing a yawn. “But their souls might not have been far away.”
“How’d that work?” William asks.
“From what I know about voodoo, it kind of makes sense,” Dan says. “Birgit explained that what we’re doing when breaking the curse is opening the doorway for the Big Angel to rush in and clean the curse out. It means we’re basically finishing what would have happened if the curse hadn’t been there to keep them artificially alive.”
“Right, so why do some come back?”
“Because their Little Angel is still present,” Dan says. “That’s the only explanation I can think of, anyway. The Little Angel is our individual soul, our personality or whatever you want to call it. It’s different from the collective life force.”
“So, if the person hasn’t fully left,” Liv goes on, “and the life force comes streaming in, it won’t kill them—it will, like, reignite them?”
“Apparently,” Dan nods.
“But why haven’t they … decayed?” Liv says, lowering her voice to a whisper. “If they’ve been dead for days?”
“Yeah, Dorte told us something about their blood coagulating,” William adds. “That’s something that can’t just be reversed.” He looks at Dan as though he’s supposed to give him an answer.
“Sorry,” Dan says, shrugging. “I just don’t know. I’m not sure I’m even making sense. I’m really tired.”
“But why does it only happen to a few?” William goes on.
“I guess some of them were still clinging to life,” Dan says. “Their Little Angels hadn’t left their bodies yet. Maybe that would explain why their bodies didn’t begin to rot; the life force could still sustain them.”
A moment of quiet in the kitchen as they listen to the voices from the living room.
Then Liv says: “You know what this means, right?”
William, Dan and Dennis all look at her.
“It means the people we knew who got infected and died might still be saved. I mean, it’s a small chance, but still …”
Dan hadn’t thought of that. Now that he sees it, his mind quickly scans through his family.
Jennie was the first one to die. But she was shot by a police officer and died for real; Selina had told him so, just hours before she herself got bitten and died.
Thomas died a few hours later. But he died a second time when Dan and Linda set fire to the car.
Dan’s mother went next. But having committed suicide, she was never infected with the curse and can’t be saved either.
Then there’s Dad.
Dad got scratched by Elias. Then he threw himself from the helicopter. Did that mean he had died for real? Had the fall killed him so that the infection couldn’t?
Dan looks to William and realizes William is staring back at him.
“Your dad,” he says, reading Dan’s mind. “He might still be … I mean, we were flying pretty low.”
Dan swallows dryly. “Even if he survived the fall, he would still have ended up in the water. He would have drowned.”
“Maybe,” William says. “But maybe the infection got him first. There’s at least a small chance.”
Dan shakes his head. “I could never find him, even if he did turn into a zombie.”
“I know,” William says, biting his lip. “If only there was some way of tracking him … wait!” He lights up, snapping his fingers. “Holy hell, it might be doable!” He pulls out his phone and looks at Dan. “Your dad’s phone. I noticed it when he used it earlier.”
Dan frowns. “Are you suggesting I call him?”
“Of course not, numbnuts. But he had the same model phone as I do. And it comes with this tracking thing where you can locate it if someone steals it. It doesn’t matter if it’s dead for power or even if they pull the battery out, we can still track it. We just need his phone number. You have that?”
Dan thinks for a moment. “I remember it, yes. But, William—”
“Holy fuck, that’s great! We can track him, Dan! We can find him!”
“There are so many maybes here,” Dan says, fighting hard to keep his hopes down. “What if his phone was busted when he fell? What if it fell out of his pocket? What if he’s still walking around the bottom of the ocean somewhere? Or if he made it to land, someone could have killed him.” Dan throws out his arms. “Even if we could actually go and find him and cure him, there’s still only a 5 percent chance he’ll come back. With all of those odds put together, I’d say have a better chance of winning the lottery.”
“I know, but … it’s your dad. Isn’t it worth a shot?”
Dan opens his mouth, then closes it again, realizing that of course William is right. That of course he’s going to do it. That even in the face of terrible odds, even the smallest, tiniest chance of getting has father back is more than enough reason that he has to do it.
He hasn’t slept for days. He’s never been this tired in his life. Yet he knows he won’t be able to rest before he’s seen this through.
“Okay,” he says, taking a deep breath. “Let’s track him.”
* * *
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Dead Meat | Day 8 Page 14
