“Looking for napkins,” Austin said. “I had to wipe drool off Zaley’s chin from seeing you strip down.”
“I can’t help what I got,” Corbin said apologetically. He liberated a lone cap. “Maybe this will fit one of the bottles we have without caps.”
Once they had all of the fries, as well as a women’s magazine that Austin had taken from the passenger seat pocket, they surveyed their small wealth of bottles and sorted them by size. There were ten two-liter soda bottles. Corbin laid them out every which way on the ground while Zaley tried caps on the smaller bottles without them. If nothing fit, they could use tape. A gun blasted far away and Austin checked around, muttering, “Goddammit, Micah, get your dumb ass back here.”
“A boogie board would be best,” Corbin said. Nine of the bottles were in three by three rows. “Zaley, you could prop up your arms on this and kick yourself along.”
“All right,” Zaley said bravely. On the inside, she was quaking. The other side of the bay was so far off, a pretty yet untouchable sight of green hills.
“But we should test it first.” Corbin had her get the tape. They bound the bottles together and Zaley looked at the water reluctantly. She didn’t want to get in there until she had to, or strip off to her underwear out here, but since it was for her benefit, she really should volunteer to be the guinea pig.
Austin said, “Don’t look at me. I had to pick up Stone Age fries.”
“I’ll do it,” Corbin said. He unzipped his jeans and paused. “Hold Zaley off, okay?”
“Stop harassing the nice gentleman, Miss Mattazollo,” Austin said sternly, and flashed the rubber badge at her. “I’m the law.”
Zaley got a towel from the car and went to the water with Corbin. He gave over his shirt and jeans, which she threw over her shoulder. His hand came down protectively to shield his butt crack from her view and he walked like that into the water. Then he swam out, one arm over the bottle board. It stayed afloat, but he shook his head and yelled, “We have to switch out one of these bottles. There are cracks all over it.”
They traded the board for the towel when he got out. Wrapping it around his waist, he said, “Wow, that was cold.”
“I got bungee cords!” Austin yelled from the trunk of another car. The broken bottle was exchanged for the last whole one, and one of the bungee cords was looped around the tape holding the first row of bottles together. The other hook could be slipped around someone’s belt loop, Austin suggesting Micah since she wasn’t there to say no. When Zaley got tired of kicking, she could just let herself be dragged along.
They took a break for a snack and returned to their task, making a second board out of the smaller bottles. There weren’t enough for a full raft, but this one could be passed around between the other three whenever they needed a break from swimming. Zaley wrapped up their food in the plastic bags, flicking off a maggot from one. All of it was placed into their backpacks. Checking on the progress of the smaller bottle board, she jumped. Corbin’s stamp was showing. That was covered up at once. They were the only ones in the lot, but someone could show up at any second.
Micah returned at long last. “What the hell are those? Garbage art?”
“Boogie boards. We’re preparing for the swim,” Zaley said, smelling cinnamon. That was curious. “Anything going on at the bridge?”
“I listened to people talk up there,” Micah said. The cinnamon was coming from her breath. “Rumor is the bridge will be opened any day now.”
“We can’t wait much longer,” Corbin said. Micah nodded. They could eat the food down to nothing and still be on the wrong side of the bridge if they waited for the day it opened. They had to swim while they were strong, perhaps tomorrow.
“Why do you smell like cinnamon?” Zaley asked after the date was set.
“I had a churro,” Micah said.
“Where the fuck did you get a churro?” Austin spluttered. “I want a churro!”
“Some lunatic of a Shepherd was handing them out to everyone, these fresh mini churros. They were delicious.” She smiled under Austin’s scathing glare. “He was celebrating how they won the bridge. I congratulated him and we talked until he got into a fight with someone. He doesn’t know why people don’t appreciate Shepherd efforts more. He gives his heart to the organization. And yes, they are actually using the word zonchos. He said it a dozen times, although with a slightly different meaning.”
“Which was?” Zaley asked.
“A lot of Mexicans crossed the border to escape the chaos. Some didn’t know they were infected, and they unwittingly spread Sombra C further in southern California. Now a ton of people are fleeing southern California, some not knowing they’re infected either, to unwittingly spread it further in northern California. They fall under the heading of zonchos, too.” Micah bit her lip pensively. “I don’t think that man was very bright.”
“Which part gave it away?” Corbin asked.
“He made such good churros though. I had two.”
“We got fries from Shor-Bee’s,” Austin bragged.
They climbed into the car once the completed boogie boards were locked in the trunk. The Shepherd had been queerly excited to tell his new friend Micah all about how much faster the infection was spreading with everyone wanting to get the hell out of southern California. Then he had segued to bridge repair, which was going very well, and added that it wouldn’t be much longer before the bridge was back in business. Fucking T-BACS. That was what had started the fight and ended their conversation, the Shepherd cursing heartily about T-BACS and another guy there to observe the repairs telling him to fuck off and to stop blocking the bridge in the first place.
“Then the war was on,” Micah said. “Verbally.”
Now resigned to swimming, Zaley wanted to get underway. It wasn’t that far off. Soon she’d been dragging herself out at those green hills and it would be done. Hopefully the food situation on that side wasn’t as bad as it was in the city. So tomorrow they’d set off and get this over with once and for all. She was sick to death of smelly San Francisco.
Over dinner, Austin paged through the magazine and said, “I can’t believe I’m bored enough to read this. But yes, I’m that bored. Ten Tips to Tone That Tush. Eyebrow Crafting. Turn Menopause into Menopower! Stress Smashers. How Does Your Man Show He Cares?”
“He cleans up zombie fingers for me,” Zaley said.
“That’s not on the list,” Austin chided.
“Micah, did you get any news of what’s going on elsewhere from that Shepherd?” Zaley asked. It was hard to have so little information.
“Yeah, a bit, but you can’t trust the filter it went through,” Micah said, the filter being the man’s head. “According to him, the T-BACS around the country and the Armed Forces are putting up a doozy of a fight. But Prime is going to see us through, and then build a better America. He was pissed because the government is sick of Shepherds getting out of jail and returning to Prime to fight another day, so they’re being put in prisoner-of-war camps all over the Midwest.”
“Like Shepherd confinement points,” Austin said. “I like that. But things don’t seem to be getting any better.”
“There are still a lot of Shepherds. Port Somewhere in some state, the guy didn’t know which, was under Shepherd rule but lost it recently. It wasn’t the Armed Forces who got it back but a homegrown militia taking it over to let goods in. After they took their huge cut first. Unless it’s a port the government has under control, as well as the roads around it, it’s anyone’s guess where the food ends up.” Micah laughed abruptly. “America sends billions of dollars around the world in aid funds and disaster relief. Now other countries are offering to send us aid. Goddamn if the president isn’t turning down the offers since it smacks the face of American superiority. Idiot.”
That made Zaley mad, not Micah’s amusement at this pathetic situation but with the president. It wasn’t the time to play the game that America was number one despite everything. Right now, the c
ountry sucked. If Canada or China wanted to drop off food, Zaley welcomed them with open arms. All hail their new overlords, just as long as they brought edibles.
“He didn’t have a lot of specifics, but he said smuggling is making people into millionaires fast,” Micah commented. “Goods and weapons come through Canada and are brought down here to be sold on the black market. That’s how people are still getting ammo and guns.” She rustled around in the backpacks. “We need to put so much plastic around the Zyllevir. We should split it up so every backpack carries a little, just in case.”
“There are extra bags in the back,” Corbin said.
“This is it for pills, what we have here. If you have Sombra C and you’re not in a harbor, you’re not getting your meds. Even the harbors aren’t guaranteed to carry more. Armored trucks go out from the factories to restock them, but sometimes they get ambushed. We’ve got enough to last for quite a while, but . . .”
No one picked up her sentence, nor was it necessary. If Corbin, Austin, and Micah weren’t in a harbor, a stocked harbor, before the bottle ran out, or if these pills were damaged, there was no more Zyllevir to be had.
Zaley couldn’t lose one friend after another to the virus. If one of them degenerated and the time came when the only solution was to shoot, she wasn’t sure if she could do it. This was why some families hid the infected in back rooms and attics, prayed and read the Bible over them, did anything but accept the truth. Now that this was a very real possibility shoved in her face, she understood it like she never had previously.
All of them sat in silence until Micah said softly, “A woman was playing a flute near the bridge.”
Austin put away the magazine and said, “That must have been pretty.”
“It was, she was clearly a professional, but that wasn’t what I noticed most of all. People were listening to her. Not looking at their phones or playing their own music, or rushing along because they had to get the kids from daycare or haul ass to work. They had nothing to do so they listened, whispered about what she was playing and wondered who she was when before none of us would have cared or even seen her there. She played and we heard her and the wind, the sounds of the bridge being repaired, the water. It was the strangest sight, all of these people gathered around her. They don’t have anywhere else to be. So they watched. You saw her, how she dipped and weaved with the notes, and how she’d dressed up like she was at a Renaissance fair. Her red hair was in a plait, hanging all the way down to her ass, and bound with green and pale pink ribbons. She wasn’t a pretty woman. Her face was long and horse-y, and she had giant nostrils. But the way she played made her more attractive, the liveliness of it. No one would have given her a second glance before. And suddenly, she was all anyone could see.”
Zaley had experienced that in line at the warehouse, watching those children be so excited about lollipops. She wouldn’t have noticed that before. Everything was different now. She would have watched the woman play the flute too, just for the treat of hearing music. Adjusting her window to a smaller crack that wouldn’t let in a finger, she lowered her chair to rest. Micah and Austin got out for a bathroom break, the latter swearing at the former for not bringing back a churro. She promised to take a shit and reconstitute one just for him.
“I see Elania in my dreams almost every night,” Corbin said quietly. “Do you?”
“No. I wish I did. I just keep dreaming that I’m late for school,” Zaley said. “We’re up here in the car and we need to get back there for first period. We drive so fast, but I know we’re never going to make it in time.”
“Our minds are trying to hold on to how it was before.” He stroked her cheek. “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay.” As okay as anyone could be in these circumstances, she supposed. She kissed him. He and Austin were trying to keep themselves shaven, but there was a little roughness on their cheeks. Zaley and Micah were just letting their legs go to seed.
His hand slid to her hair and wound through the strands. No longer did he kiss her open-mouthed, like they had in junior year when they dated. Now he feared that he’d infect her. The risk was minimal, but there was always a chance. She kissed his cheeks and temples and neck, the heat between them turning to fire. They had to keep it under tight control, and finally she tucked her head into his shoulder in frustration and tried to calm herself down. She hadn’t been ready for sex when she could have had it, and now she was feeling as ready as a girl could for her first time and couldn’t go through with it.
“Thank you for getting me out of there,” Corbin whispered. “I didn’t want to die in a confinement point.”
“I didn’t want you to die there either,” Zaley said, her heart still pounding.
“I don’t think I can believe in God after that.”
Breathing in and out, she didn’t know what to say. She believed in God, but she hadn’t been in the confinement point. Corbin said, “It’s weird. I’m still a little afraid that I’ll get in trouble for not believing. But if there isn’t anything out there, then why am I afraid?” He ran his fingers through her hair and kissed her scalp. “Why would God let a confinement point exist? Why would He let that happen to me? He never gives you more than you can bear? That place . . . it was more than anyone could bear. Elania would have answers for this. But I don’t.”
“I keep expecting to see her,” Zaley said. “And then I remember she’s gone.” Saying dead was too hard. On their way back, Micah and Austin cut through the cars. Clouds hid the sky.
“And she’s the only reason I can’t give it all up to be an atheist,” Corbin said, drawing away and pulling up the towels at his feet to give one to Zaley. “I want to believe that she’s looking out for me. For us. What do you think?”
“I think these are all things we can figure out later,” Zaley said. “I’m just focused on getting across the bay.”
“We’ll make it. We’ll be tired as hell when we pull in, but we’ll get there.”
She lay awake long after the others had fallen asleep, praying that Corbin was right.
Corbin
He just hadn’t ever been into swimming. The family photo albums held the requisite pictures of him as a chubby toddler, bent over in a diaper to scoop sand into a bucket at the shore, and walking along at the edge of the waves with his hand in his father’s. When he was four or five years old, he’d taken a class at a gym that basically taught kids how not to drown. Cloudy Valley Junior High had a pool, which they were supposed to swim in for P.E. class, but it was so badly maintained that the one time he was actually in it, he couldn’t see his feet through the water in the shallow end. He still remembered the slimy feeling of it under his soles. The high school also had a pool, but his P.E. classes focused more on track and field. The handful of times they were in the water, it was just to mess around.
He hadn’t done much more than that until they had had to swim across the reservoir. Paddling about at pool parties didn’t count, nor did trips to waterparks when he just had to flail from the flume to the steps. So he sort of knew how to swim, but he also sort of didn’t know. His favorite sports were ones he played with his thumbs.
No one in his family was into sports. He’d really liked his P.E. classes since they didn’t require him to read and the games were fun, but that hadn’t carried over into after school sports very often. If he’d known then what he knew now, he would have spent the last four years of high school on the swim team. Freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly, water polo, he would have mastered it all. It embarrassed him to be the weak link on the shore of the peninsula.
In his dreams all through the night, he was going underwater in some way. The waves picked up and scattered them, leaving him far out to sea without a boogie board; the waves were still but something was pulling him down, like his feet were dipped in concrete and it was getting heavier. In another dream, he swam with expertise but the shore kept receding until he was too tired to go on. That was followed by a ridiculous dream in which
Corbin, Zaley, Micah, and Austin were pressed back to back in the water, a circle of sharks going around them to ominous music. One of the sharks had Elania’s head in place of its own. People watched and cheered from the Golden Gate Bridge, thinking it was a scene from a reality show. Sally Wang was among them.
When he woke up in a cold sweat, he wondered how Sally was doing. Not because he was still interested in her, but just because he wondered how everyone was doing since the world fell apart. His teachers, his neighbors, other friends from school, his bratty younger cousin Kalhoun . . . if Kalhoun thought it was rough getting a little less hong bao for Chinese New Year, Corbin couldn’t imagine how he was dealing with this. Sulking and whining to his mommy, and she would be doing everything to placate.
The others were still asleep. Chilly air swept in through the window cracks. The zombie’s finger coming off had grossed Corbin out, although nothing after the confinement point should have been capable of summoning that reaction in him. He’d wanted bleach to wash off the door where it might have touched. Even now, with Zaley curled up in the driver’s seat and unconscious, Corbin was scanning the window and door for slicks of liquid and bits of meat.
Today they swam. The fog was so thick that it had almost shielded the water close by and left no trace of the bridge or the land across the bay. No way could they swim in this. They wouldn’t be able to see where they were going. Corbin wasn’t sure how long it was going to take for the fog to burn off. That wasn’t something he had taken into account yesterday, which was dumb. It was so often foggy in San Francisco. But he wasn’t too mad at himself about the overlook. All of his energy was going to worrying about the swim.
He flexed the fingers of his left hand. With nothing else to do but sit around the car for weeks, he’d been really good about doing his physical therapy exercises. They weren’t helping much, or maybe his hand had accomplished all that it could. It wasn’t a big deal, or it hadn’t felt like one until he was facing the reality of crossing the bay. Stretching out in his seat, plastic crinkled under his foot. He had plastic bags set aside to wrap the bow and quiver within when it was time to go. The outermost bag had a drawstring, which he’d tie to his backpack.
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 120
