“Shower, I love you!” Austin yelled gleefully. His voice lifted an octave and he cried, “I love you back, Austin!”
Dumping the dirty clothes onto Elania’s, Corbin thought about lying down. But he had to get an outfit for Zaley first. “Do you know what size Zaley wears on anything? We should pick out something for her.”
They put together an outfit. He folded the clothes with care and placed them on the shelf of the nightstand. Two men’s voices were coming from the kitchen. Uncle Brad was back. Without Shepherds, it was safe to presume, since Micah came into the bedroom. She put the gun in a backpack and let herself into the bathroom. Austin yelled at her to get out and she yelled at him that she had to pee and she’d seen all he had to offer ages ago.
Corbin flopped onto the blue bed. “Did those two actually hook up at some point?”
“Yeah,” Elania said. Hesitantly, she added, “You and Zaley okay?”
He buried his face in the pillow. “I fucked up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Did you know there was some asshole Shepherd hitting on her? Feeling her up?”
“No, she never told me. That’s awful.”
It had scared Zaley so badly that she couldn’t even tell her girlfriends. The dogs galloped down the hallway and into the room, where they sniffed Corbin’s fingers and galloped out. It was way too early for bedtime, yet he was ready for bed regardless. Pots and pans clattered in the kitchen and the news played on the television in the living room. He should go out there to listen to it, but he fell asleep.
Austin woke him for dinner later on. The house was saturated with the good smells of pork chops and buttery mashed potatoes. A giant bowl of salad was on the dining room table, and warm bread rolls were in a basket under a towel. It had been set with real plates and utensils, not paper and plastic, and there were cloth napkins. Everyone else was seated and the dogs had been fed, too. Corbin rubbed at his eyes and sat down. He heaped his plate with food while the others spoke, their words making little to no impact on his half-asleep brain.
After however long it had been of food from the trash and cheap minimarts, this was going to be a meal to savor. He lifted his fork to the crest of the potatoes and paused. Then he put it down.
“Okay there, Corbin? Food allergies?” Aunt Jeanie asked.
Corbin stood up. “Thank you for all of this. I can’t say it enough. I understand why you want Zaley downstairs, and I’m not asking you to go back on that. You’re putting yourselves at great risk for total strangers. Respectfully, I ask that you allow me to be with her down in the basement. Search me for a phone if you’re worried, and lock me in.”
Uncle Brad said, “Is she your girlfriend, son?”
“No,” Corbin said. “She’s my ex.”
The two men looked at one another and then Uncle Brad stood. He went into the kitchen and took down an extra plate, which he filled with the good food on the table. Corbin lifted his own plate and followed him out the back door and down the stairs. Uncle Brad unlocked the door.
It was a small basement, as Austin had said. A big beige sofa took up a third of it. Elania clattered down the steps with the outfit and a towel as Corbin smiled at Zaley. She was curled up on the sofa with the blanket over her. It was cold in the room. When she smiled a little back, he was heartened that she didn’t hate him.
“Is it okay if he rooms with you for the night?” Uncle Brad asked.
“Yes, thank you,” Zaley said. The man put the plate on the counter of an industrial-sized sink and moved aside for Elania to set down the clothes. There were pegboards on the wall like this had once been a workshop. Bottles of soda and water were on the counter, along with basic snacks.
When the door was locked, Corbin said, “I thought you might like to share dinner with me.”
“I have food,” Zaley said about the snacks. Her eyes looked tired.
“A real dinner.” Corbin picked up the second plate and gripped it hard in his bad hand. The plate was too heavy even without all the food on it. Setting his down on the counter, he transferred Zaley’s plate into his good hand and carried it to her. He’d forgotten utensils, so he offered his own and looked through the snacks for more. There weren’t any. The pork chop and bread he could eat by hand, and he’d use the utensils for his mashed potatoes and vegetables after Zaley was finished with her meal.
He sat down beside her and noticed that she was struggling to cut the pork chop. That was dumb of him to not anticipate the problem. Putting his plate aside a second time and taking everything away from her, he said, “It’s stupid, isn’t it? How you just forget at times.” Sawing a bite from the pork chop, he speared it on the fork and handed it to her.
She chewed on it. “Oh, that’s good. Real food.” He took the fork back and cut another. Swallowing the first bite, she said, “Sometimes I dream my arm is fine, that getting shot was the dream. And sometimes I dream that I have no arm at all. No, you have that bite.”
“We shouldn’t share a fork.”
“Have the bite, dammit.”
He pulled it carefully from the fork with his teeth, wanting to please her. The pork chop was perfectly seasoned. “These are nice guys, if you have Sombra C.”
“It’s funny to get singled out this way for not having it,” Zaley said. “What is it that Elania brought down?”
“A towel and shampoo, new jeans, a shirt, socks and things. You could wash your hair in that big sink if you want. I can help. I mean . . . I guess you’ve been doing that on your own for a while now.”
“You can help, if you don’t mind.”
“Why would I offer if I minded?” Corbin said in exasperation.
She sank into his side and his temper evanesced. “I would love to wash my hair, or have you wash it for me. My arm isn’t in a good mood.”
They shared everything on her plate, and followed that with everything on his. Corbin didn’t know how to apologize for earlier, so he focused on the division of the food. Then he brought over a bottle of sparkling water and opened the cap. It was room temperature, but since the room was cold, it was refreshing.
Elania had snatched a bar of soap, a stick of deodorant, and a washcloth, too. When their shower had broken at home, they’d had to wash their hair in the kitchen. Remembering how his mother did it, he brought over a chair to the big sink and turned it to face away. Zaley looked through the clothes. “Are these new?”
“New or new enough. There are two big boxes of things for every age and size,” Corbin said. The water ran in the sink and warmed up around his fingers.
She removed everything on top but a thin T-shirt and knelt on the chair. “Don’t breathe too deeply. I smell awful.”
He was just sad that she couldn’t stand in that wonderful shower upstairs. “Well, don’t judge too critically, I don’t run a salon.”
Dumping shampoo into his palm as she awkwardly dampened her hair, he scrubbed his hands together and worked the shampoo into her scalp. Slowly he moved down to the ends, making sure to get every strand, and she laughed. “You wash hair like you write texts. Precisely.”
“I don’t like to make mistakes.” He was talking about his need to spell correctly, but also about earlier.
“I know,” she said, and he knew it was about both, too. He filled the empty glass container of sparkling water with the stream from the faucet and dumped it over the back of her head to get the shampoo out. Some of it ran the wrong way, going down her neck, and he put his hand there to block it. Drops pattered down to the floor, which was concrete around the sink.
It was a poky process, but they got through it. He dried off her neck with the washcloth and she pointed to the sofa. “Sit there and think about Mr. Dayze. I’m going to wash off the rest of me.”
He sat down, but didn’t think of Mr. Dayze. Water splashed in the sink. His stomach was so full that it felt distended. The packed sensation was making him sleepy. Looking over to the snacks on the counter for dessert, he saw that Zaley was naked from th
e waist up, and rapidly becoming naked from the waist down. He looked away fast and thought about Mr. Dayze. “Why did you have to put that man in my head? I hated his class.”
“I checked out for the hour,” Zaley said. “Soon as the bell rang, I went to my happy place.”
That was what she did when she was overwhelmed. She checked out. It was how she could survive her family, and why she hadn’t hit that Shepherd guy. “Tell me about your happy place.”
“Oh, whatever world was in the book I was reading at the time. I’d just insert myself into one of the characters and have adventures. Later it was the apartment you said I’d have. You worried that I’d hate the nubby carpet, but I didn’t. It was mine. Where’s your happy place, Corbin?”
“Right now it’s that job in Napa. Getting a paycheck, taking a girl out for dinner, a movie, like I’m normal.” Taking you out for dinner and a movie, but he didn’t say that. He couldn’t take her anywhere until medical science discovered a cure for Sombra C. “I can’t believe my father is in jail. He’s never even gotten a traffic ticket.”
“What are they even holding him for?”
“For causing a fuss that his son is gone, basically for not agreeing that that’s okay. When we go tomorrow, I’m going to tell Mom to stay with my relatives. She shouldn’t be alone, especially with a creep around.”
“That’s a good idea.” Zaley sighed. “Glad it’s concrete. I’m getting everything wet.”
Mr. Dayze, Mr. Dayze, Mr. Dayze. Corbin put the blanket over his lap. “He was such a fool, that man. Bragging about his disciplinary file, believing his debates were clever rather than dumb. Mr. Tran was the best of Cloudy Valley High and Mr. Dayze was the worst.”
“You just keep thinking about Mr. Dayze while I dry off and get dressed,” Zaley teased as the water turned off.
He leaned over the side of the sofa and searched within the front pouch of her backpack. “Score! One candy bar to share for dessert.”
“No, you have it. I’m stuffed.”
Too stuffed for it either, he set it back into the pouch. His fingers scratched over the amethyst chunks of her bracelet. She had kept it all of this time, the whole year since they broke up. Catching it on his finger, he pulled it out of the pouch to hold it. Making this bracelet had been fun for him.
Zaley hissed, “Go fuck yourself, arm.”
“What made it mad?”
“I banged into the doorway coming inside. Now it’s claiming vengeance.”
When she said it was all right to look, he turned around. She moved the chair to the wall and draped the wet towel over it. The washcloth was dripping over the faucet and she had rinsed their dirty plates. The new clothes appeared to fit, but the bra was still on the counter. Corbin said, “Did you need a different size of-?”
Her cheeks reddened. “No. I can’t hook it with one hand. I’ve had to wear a sports bra, but it’s chafing my skin something awful. I’m not . . . bouncing too much?”
“It’s great,” Corbin blurted. “I mean, it’s fine.”
She grinned and combed through her damp hair with her fingers. “I’ll bet it’s fine with you, perv.”
“Appreciation of the female form is not perversion,” Corbin said. “That aside, I can hook it for you in the morning, if you want.”
“In a state of appreciation?”
“Yes. And necessity.”
It was so cold in this room, even though the hot water on his hands had helped for a while. Stretching out on the sofa, he pressed himself to the back cushions and lifted the blanket. She backed into him and he covered her up to the shoulder. Then he took her left arm in his and crooked it so he could slip the amethyst bracelet up her wrist.
She wasn’t his, but he couldn’t stop himself. He wanted to see it there, to take her out for dinner and have her in his bed. All he could have was the first. “Could we try this again? Hi, I’m Corbin Li. I’ve seen you around the woods lately.”
Her laughter vibrated through him. “Hi, I’m Zaley Mattazollo. And yes. I’d love to try again.” She snuggled back into him as he put his arm around her waist, and they slept.
Micah
The zombie had ripped out his neck and chomped on his face, little Julio or William or Kalvin. Micah dreamed of the attack on the top bunk bed, and slipped back in time to when the zombie was an accountant. He was the kind of guy that women’s eyes skipped over, his extra pounds stuffed into a cheap suit, yelling obnoxiously at the sports game on the television over the bar at a restaurant. Written on the calendar in his cell phone were reminders like Mom’s birthday and dentist at three. No pets. No kids. Socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Peter-Panned it with his equally carefree dude buddies and six-packs of beer on the weekends. A somewhat oversized ego for his undersized life. Gary Long wasn’t a total dud. He just wasn’t a prize.
Then he got Sombra C. In her dream, he hid it and decided to do a citrus diet instead of Zyllevir. How could he admit to having it? The stamp equaled his firing, his eviction, the end of his world. And he was a healthy dude with a strong immune system. He’d kick this, and he wasn’t all that sure that the fever had indicated Sombra C and not another, more benign virus. Hadn’t Doris been sick at work last week? Of course! She never used her sick time, caught illnesses from her kids and proceeded to cough and sneeze all over the office three times a year. He’d picked up on her germs. Goddamn Doris! Time to hit the produce section of Mr. Foods, read up on juicing, hit the treadmill, clean up his apartment. Why the last? He didn’t know. He just wanted it to be clean. Clear out the porn sites on his laptop history, run the vacuum over the carpet, and dust off the family photos. Make sure his papers were in order.
Ignore the breath of fear.
The dream was ridiculously detailed, showing Micah every facet of this man’s life. It was his dude friends who suspected what was going on during a guys’ weekend to the ocean. Gary was blinking so much at the sunlight. Pausing to answer questions far longer than was normal. Didn’t notice the girls in bikinis going by. One friend conducted a discreet spit check. Then they knew.
What did they do with him? Micah sat in the dream car while they talked in mumbles, even though Gary was just staring blankly out the window. Dude, if it were me with it, I wouldn’t want to be in a confinement point force-fed Zyllevir all my life! But dude, it’s Gary! He’ll starve out there! Look, it won’t take long. He doesn’t quite know where he is right now. Dude, we either take him to a hospital or to the trail. He can’t go home. He’ll go all Looper in a few days. We’ll give him the cooler. It’s got food and water in it. Let’s get him out of this car!
So that was how Gary Long got to Klaman Trail. Her dream shifted to a boy screaming for a girl being taken away in a separate police car. This was Sergio or Devon or Kristopher going into foster care. She knew how he got to the trail, chose to play Big Man Boomslang and go a’huntin’. And then Gary Long and Boomslang came together. She jerked awake in a gray dawn at a fall of maggots from the hole in the boy’s neck.
Elania was still asleep. Even though they weren’t supposed to use phones, Micah did. The president was directing the Armed Forces from a hidden location, just as Shepherd Prime was directing theirs from another one. Or multiple locations. The docks had been taken back. The Brooklyn Bridge was destroyed. Air travel remained down through wide swathes of the United States. The Shepherds had named a new president. That piece made her laugh quietly. This idiot organization had managed to tumble the entire country into anarchy! She saluted the picture of President Gordon Drake in mockery and played the video on low volume. The Shepherds even had the nerve to pose their new president in front of an American flag. He stood behind a podium and ejaculated into the microphone that it was time to take America back from the zombies.
A collection of the country’s misfits and mental cases had landed Micah in this catch, unable to go home and wearing someone’s donated underpants. She was going to dump her friends off in Sable Heights and go a’huntin’ herself. Bring
down a slab of Shepherd Prime meat. She liked the thought of stepping into that pressroom and blasting the new president’s head clean off his shoulders. That act would land her in the history books. It was another thought she liked. One hundred years from now, she’d be the name some poor kids would be straining to remember on their exams. Michelle . . . Michal . . .
People would fail classes because of her. They’d lose the Triple Big Win on the game show Test Your Knowledge for stumbling over Camborne. Hamburn? Campern? Micah Campern, that’s it. The girl who shot the Shepherd President! The ensuing error beep would result in very crestfallen faces. She’d be dead yet immortal, still fucking with people from beyond the grave. Historians and forensic psychologists would dissect her for weighty tomes and weirdos make a shrine of her tomb. Micah sat on a list for most overused baby names.
Thinking of the maggots from the boy’s neck, she got up to use the bathroom. Today they were passing through the rotational brace, those Shepherds busy bothering people somewhere else in northern Charbot. The gay guys were going to drop them off behind an abandoned strip mall in southern San Francisco. The back door of Store 43 would be unlocked, and they were to hide inside the storeroom there until the next people picked them up. After dinner and a short rest at their house, they were pressing on through the next brace.
She hadn’t trusted these guys at first. Now she did, and she didn’t trust the next ones. If she had a choice, she’d stay with Uncle Brad and Aunt Jeanie all the way to Sable Heights. Once she’d mentioned her moms at dinner last night, they relaxed around her. She knew that look (oh, she’s one of our kids) and they could tell that there wasn’t any hidden judgment on her part. Maybe others had done that, pretended to be okay with them being gay just to make the next catch. Use them while it was necessary, and pray for them at bedtime to fall in love with tits and twats.
When someone wrote her biography, they’d better include Micah’s Uncle Brad and Aunt Jeanie. They were real heroes, neither with any stake in what happened to Sombra Cs except a memory to a friend. Their young daughter was at home with a babysitter. They’d warmed up more hour by hour to see that Micah was a polite, sociable, and intelligent young woman. Sidelong looks, posture, so much could be known without a personal word spoken. She was curious which one of them had the disapproving parents. One did, if not both, and that was why they were so happy to meet her.
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 78
