by D C P Fox
Chastened, Alexander gave a quiet “yeah.” Jize said “yes” with an air of confidence. Jocelyn nodded when Vin looked at her.
“We need Marty in on this,” Jocelyn said.
“He’s guarding us,” Vin said.
“He can guard us from here,” Jize said.
Vin nodded. “You have a point. Alexander, you want to go get him?”
Alexander gave him an inquisitive look. “Why do I have to be your errand boy?”
Vin sighed. “I’ll guard Jocelyn and Jize with my shotgun.”
Alexander nodded. “Okay, but I think you’re being over-cautious.”
“Save it for when you get the sheriff here,” Vin said. Alexander walked away.
“Man, that guy’s insufferable,” Vin said. “He really thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us.”
“Not any more than you,” Jocelyn said.
“Me?!”
“You both think you’re better than everyone else.”
Vin looked at her askance. “No, just better than you. And the rest of you.”
“Now you’re the asshole.”
“Oh, come off it, Miss I’ve-got-a-spiffy-sword-so-I’m-so-special.” He said that last string of words in a high pitch. “Look, snowflake, you think you’re better than the rest of us, too.”
“Well, I’m certainly better than you.”
Vin leaned against the wall outside the hardware store.
“See, this is what I’m talking about. You’re such a—” He stopped and pursed his lips. Marty and Alexander arrived.
“Well,” Marty said. “What’re we gonna do?”
“We will not kill them,” Jize said.
“No one’s suggesting that, piano-player,” Vin said.
“No, but we are all thinking about it,” Jize said. “I was.”
“But what if they turn into zombies? Suddenly, without warning?” Jocelyn asked.
“I don’t think that will happen just yet,” Alexander said. “Remember the woman I told you about at the top of Beaver Mountain? She’d said she’d been sick for about a week, muttered something about not being able to miss a week’s pay. I’m thinking this has a long incubation period for someone with infected blood but not infected brain.”
“Okay, what do we do about it?” Marty asked.
“We go on to Colorado Springs as planned,” Alexander declared. “Let the military take care of them.”
“If they’re there,” Vin said.
“If they’re not,” Alexander said, “we’ll worry about that when we get there. We’ll monitor them closely, but we must take our chances. We will not kill them, and we will not abandon them.”
“Abandoning them would kill them,” Jize said.
No one spoke. It was clear they all agreed.
Jocelyn suddenly got a crazy idea. But it just might work. “Or,” she said, then paused.
“Yes?” said Alexander after a short while.
Jocelyn shrugged. “I could give them some of my blood.”
“And infect them for sure?” Vin asked.
“Wait, Jocelyn may be right,” Marty said. “It could give them Jocelyn’s healing powers. That’s what you’re thinking, right?”
A cold gust of wind blew. Jocelyn shivered again as she nodded.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think it will work,” Alexander said.
“Finally, Alexander makes sense,” Vin said.
“Why not, Alexander?” Marty asked.
“So, if you transfuse from Jocelyn, Jocelyn’s white blood cells would enter Emily. They would recognize her as ‘non-self’ and attack her. They call this graft-versus-host disease, and it is always fatal. The opposite, host-versus-graft disease, is why people who receive organ transplants are on immunosuppressive therapy for the rest of their lives. This is to suppress their immune system, so it doesn’t recognize the new organ as ‘non-self’ and attack or reject it. Well, at best it’s risky. We don’t know what’s in Jocelyn’s blood. And she may still be a carrier, in which case we’d be giving Emily another exposure to the pathogen.”
“But if I have nanobots, or bacteria, or whatever it is, in me,” Jocelyn said. “Wouldn’t they just go into her? No one dies from mixing in a little blood from someone else. Maybe a tiny amount is enough to get the nanobots to work.”
Alexander shook his head. “Maybe, but maybe the bots require live virus to work. Maybe the bots protect the virus as they carry it, but they release it periodically, and they require viruses to do their work. Maybe the bots manufacture the virus. Maybe the bots are viruses. But who knows? There’s just too much we don’t know.”
“You don’t know something?” Vin said with fake incredulity. “You sounded so sure about your virus and nanobots bullshit.”
“Actually, I said—”
“Never mind,” Vin said. “I think we should try it.”
“Even though we don’t know if she’s infected?” Alexander pointed out.
“And when did we see someone not get infected?” Vin asked.
“That was when their brains were eaten,” Alexander countered. “The rules might be different for this type of transmission.”
“Alexander, you don’t really believe that,” Vin said. “As I said, I vote we try it.”
“So now we’re voting on whether to infect people intentionally?” Marty asked.
“Yes. Yes, we are,” Vin asserted. “Anyone else want to join me?”
“I do.”
“Jocelyn!” Alexander exclaimed. “You can’t be serious.”
Jocelyn merely nodded. She believed Alexander had been right up till now—that it was highly transmissible. Everyone knew Janice and Emily were infected. Alexander was being a coward.
“Sheriff?” Vin asked.
“I don’t think we should do it. I agree with Alexander, it’s too risky.”
“So we have a tie,” Vin said. “Jize, it’s all up to you.”
“Oh damn,” Jize said quietly. After a long pause, he said, “I think it’s better we wait until we understand more.”
“We may never understand more,” Jocelyn said.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Day Nine
Janice’s heart fluttered as the van pulled into her driveway. Her home was on a side road about a half mile from the highway, carved out of the forest of evergreen trees. She sat nearest to the sliding door to be the first to get out. She left Emily to Jize’s care, who admirably fulfilled a role as a father figure to Emily. Vin, while still her Prince Charming, had no interest in such a role. Janice understood this—he did not have children, and she knew what that was like. In fact, she herself was reluctant to take on the motherly role for Emily. But Janice knew Emily needed a mother-figure, and Jocelyn showed no interest in that, either. Jocelyn also bore the burden of being half-zombie, and although Janice knew Jocelyn could manage the motherly role if she had to, Janice was glad to ease Jocelyn of that burden. Also, Janice had the unique benefit of having known Emily for a week now.
But Janice was not ashamed to admit, at least to herself, that none of them were as important to her as her cat, Toonces. Janice was a big Saturday Night Live fan back in her day, and she had named the cat after the “cat who could drive a car.”
When the van stopped, she grabbed the handle of the sliding door and hesitated. What am I going to do if she’s not all right? Can I even handle it? But I must. My only alternative is to leave her to die, and now that I have a chance to save her, that won’t happen.
Janice slid the van door open and jumped out. She found herself running toward her front door, barely registering the ground. Already prepared for this moment, she reached into the front pocket of her pink sweat pants and produced a can of tuna.
The door was ajar, and she barreled through as if she were chased.
“Toonces!” she called. “Toonces!”
In the diffuse light, brought in only by the Sun, she spotted a torn open box of cereal on the counter, and her heart skipped again as she reali
zed Toonces might still be alive. But did she survive the freezing cold nights? In the kitchen, her water dish was not empty, though her food dish was clean. Oh, how she wished she’d used a food tower! Then she spied some dried vomit with some undigested cereal in it. Since the box still had cereal remaining, she realized that Toonces had had trouble digesting it.
She opened the can of tuna, realizing she was hungry herself and would love to eat it right out of the can. She knew Toonces would.
If she could find her.
“Toonces!” she called. “Toonces!”
“Meeow!” She announced herself, leaping onto the dining room table like she always loved to do.
Toonces!
Janice put down the open can on the table in front of her, and she dug right in. Janice could see her ribs, that she had lost some weight, but otherwise she looked good.
“All this because of a cat,” Vin said. No one said anything to contradict him.
Ah, screw them. They’ll never understand. I’m never letting you out of my sight again.
“The door latch is broken,” Vin said. “Someone may be in here. Sheriff, you check the bathroom. I’ll check the bedrooms. Jocelyn, guard the rest.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Jize said, “you have a piano.” Janice turned and looked at him. His expression was priceless. Janice couldn’t tell which one of them was more painfully joyful.
“Bathroom clear!” the sheriff called.
“I didn’t want to get your hopes up,” Janice said, “in case we didn’t make it here.”
Jize just stared at it. Old and yellowed and small, it was all Janice could afford. She had bought it used around twenty years ago.
“Have you played recently?” he asked. “Is it tuned?”
“Bedrooms clear!” Vin called.
“I play all the time. It was tuned fine before . . . “ She didn’t finish her thought. In her mind, if you didn’t talk about it, you didn’t have to relive it. Their lives were horrible enough as it was without reliving that horror. Emily seemed to relive it in her dreams every other night. And during the day, she continued to offer tidbits of what happened spontaneously, apropos of nothing.
Vin and the sheriff came back.
Jize stood transfixed. Tears dripped from off his cheeks.
“What’s with him?” Vin asked Janice.
Janice ignored Vin. “Would you play something for us Jize?” Janice asked.
“Ah, hell,” Vin said. “I’m taking a shower.”
“You’re welcome to it,” Janice said, “and thanks for asking.”
Vin sighed. “I’m sorry, Janice,” he said.
Sorry? I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say he was sorry.
“May I use your shower?” he asked.
“If it’s working, sure, but don’t you want to hear Jize play first? That is . . . if he wants to?”
As though in answer to Janice’s query, Jize walked up to the piano and sat down. He lifted the cover over the keys.
“Ah, jeez, all right,” Vin said. “Just make it quick. Play a short piece.”
“I will play a work that is short that I think captures our mood.”
“Who is it by?” Janice asked.
“It is Chopin. The Raindrop Prelude.”
He began with a light touch on the keys. Although the notes were in the high range, it was a very somber and simple piece. And then it changed to very low notes and became dark and foreboding. He started to play louder with more force, but then retreated to mid-range sobriety, only to repeat the louder part, alternating ferocity with melancholy. She began to sense his anger, his sadness, and even his frustration. Suddenly, he barely touched the keys, hitting some isolated high notes. And then it was over. Was there a hint of hope in the ending?
Over far too soon, she tasted the salt of tears. She approached him and opened her arms. He stood up, turned around, and they embraced, each one sobbing a little. Janice hoped there wasn’t a dry eye in the room, but she and Jize shared a moment of profound sadness, yet profound joy.
She had found her cat, and he had found his piano. And she was in her home, and for the first time in a long time, she was surrounded by people she cared about, that she dared care about.
It took an apocalypse to re-connect her to humanity.
And the pain in her shoulder reminded her of her own mortality.
Jize broke off the embrace and brushed the tears off of Janice’s cheeks.
“I wish to stay,” he said.
Janice’s facial expression turned to distress. “What do you mean you wish to stay?” She seemed to fumble for some thoughts. “You wish to stay here?”
“If it’s all right with you.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“We’re not staying here,” Jocelyn said. “We have to get to Colorado Springs, remember?”
No, they did not understand. They did not understand how much the piano meant to him, how lost he had been over this past week. He knew he had lost his family—he could feel it in his bones. And while he was grieving for them, he realized he was also grieving the loss of the piano.
“No, I do not wish for you to change your plans . . . well, I do. I would love for all of you to stay with me here. But I know what you are doing is too important. Therefore, I do not ask you to stay. I do not want to put you in a position where you have to say no . . . except you, Janice, and Emily.”
Janice looked bewildered. “Me? Emily?”
“You love to play the piano too. You have a cat to look after. We can take our fair share of the food. We can live for a decent amount of time.”
“When did you come up with this crazy idea?” Janice asked.
Jize put his hands on the piano. Every piano had a unique energy. This one had absorbed energy from Janice and Toonces. “While I was playing.”
“But what about us being infected? What if we turn into zombies?”
Jize shrugged and sighed. “We do not know that you will.”
“Yes, but what if we do?”
“Then we will all become zombies. I cannot ask for you all to leave me a shotgun, and I do not think I could bring myself to kill you.”
“Wait, let me get this straight,” Vin said. “You are willing to become a zombie so you can have a few days playing the piano?”
“I do not expect you to understand,” Jize explained. “I do not expect any of you to understand. But I do expect that you will not force me to go with you.”
Everyone was silent for a while—an extended, pregnant pause. Janice’s eyes were darting back and forth in their sockets, and Jize thought she might be trying to think of a way to let him down easy.
She did not look like a person who wanted to stay. She wasn’t smiling.
“I am sorry, Janice. I see I have made a grave error. I completely understand if you do not want to stay with me here.”
“It’s just . . .” Janice stammered. “ . . . it’s just I believe in Jocelyn’s cause.”
“As do I. But I will be of little help, I am afraid.”
The cat jumped onto the top of the piano, purring up a storm.
“And if I turn into a zombie . . . if Emily does . . . maybe the government has a way of keeping us . . . I don’t know . . . quarantined or something, until they can find a cure.”
“I understand,” Jize said.
“I don’t think you do, Jize,” Janice said. “Please don’t go. I want to help you, I do, but I want to help all of you. Please, I can’t bear to have us split up. I’ve helped you all, and I want to keep helping you. Please, I’m begging you, don’t stay here.”
“Am I not welcome in your home?”
“Of course, you’re welcome. But I really wish you’d go on with us.”
Jize shook his head. He already made up his mind. “I’m sorry—”
“But they may have a piano at the air base,” she said. Jize felt she was reaching.
“If they do, and you wish, you may come back for me. But I will not go
unless they have one. You find me a piano, and I will travel there. I do not wish to be alone, but for now I must . . . unless you wish me to look after your cat?” He started to pet Toonces. She was a friendly and pretty domestic shorthair with black and gray stripes.
Marty grunted.
“Oh, this is madness,” Vin said. “I’m going to take a fucking shower. Jize, you’re welcome to come along, but you know we don’t need you.”
“I know.”
“Janice, on the other hand—” Vin started to say.
“—Can make her own decision.” Janice finished.
“Well, you know how I feel, not that that matters,” Vin said. “I’m taking a shower.”
“I need to meditate,” Jocelyn said.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Day Nine
A meditation was long overdue, but Jocelyn hadn’t had a good opportunity until now. She had fulfilled Saint Michael’s wishes to get medicated, and now she wished further guidance, though she was pretty set on trying to find Colorado Springs and maybe being used to find a cure. She knew it was a slim hope, but what other hope did they have?
Jocelyn meditated in an empty bedroom, intending to converse with the entity that would be for her highest good. She traveled to her Inner Temple, and an elderly man in a full-length red robe was waiting for her. He introduced himself as the Archangel Metatron. “Shall we walk in your beautiful garden?” Jocelyn knew Metatron as the Voice of God, and his voice boomed. She had never conversed with him though.
Her Inner Temple contained a lush garden, green with colorful roses and orchids. A brook, originating from a light waterfall from the top of the atrium, ran through the middle. They strolled down a winding red-brick path. She increased the size of the garden for the walk. Skunk was on the path, as if he had been waiting for them to arrive. He jumped up and landed on Jocelyn’s shoulder. Skunk always was a comfort for her, and she appreciated the gesture.
“I remind you of the sins you committed,” Metatron said. “Thou shalt not kill.”
Jocelyn stopped short. “I killed because of my mental illness, or by self-defense. That does not make it a sin . . . doesn’t it?”
