Was it real? Did it matter? What mattered was pulling up a crab in the hoop net, that Micah brought in fish, and that diapers got washed in the bucket and laid out in the tents to dry. The relief truck mattered, as did keeping the stamps out of sight and making sure the baby didn’t get hold of the guns.
The Battle at Occidental. The Battle of Milwaukee. The Washington D.C. Riots. Control between the military and Prime swung back and forth from one region to the next. Fresh Sombra C infections were exploding everywhere, and without easily accessible saliva tests to identify them, or Zyllevir for treatment, the infected were degrading to the feral state, where they attacked others and died. That wasn’t the only health problem besieging the nation when hospitals weren’t getting enough medications or supplies to contend with anything else. A more run-of-the-mill virus was sweeping across the states, but exacting a higher toll than it would have otherwise in easier times.
Zaley listened to people talk and drew up the hoop net again and again, looking inside it to see the state of her world. She wasn’t in Occidental or Milwaukee or southern California; she didn’t have an illness bringing her low. She just needed to scare up some dinner. Bob leaned on the bars of the pier at her side one day and said, “It’s June.”
June. June was graduation, weddings, pool parties, and the horror of knowing the summer stretched out before her in that dark little home in Cloudy Valley. June had always been one of her least favorite months. The associations came to her one at a time, dredged up from a deep place in her brain. “I had no idea. Any plans?”
He chuckled and threw his hoop net. “My wife told me this morning. The two of us should have been flying to New York this month to visit our son and his family. His kids and our great-grandkids, they all live there and in Connecticut. Had a wheelchair rented for Mary. It was going to be our last trip, our health the way it is. Then we were going to let them come to us. She’s disappointed though. Wanted so much to see the new great-grandson. Babies always pluck up her spirits. You?”
“Graduating from high school and picking out classes at the junior college.” It wasn’t quite true, but she didn’t want to say that she’d planned to kill herself last December. It was too heavy for this beautiful day and friendly conversation.
“You had that boy young.” She just nodded. He had seen Zaley and Mars going to the relief truck, and believed the baby stayed with her friends while she crabbed. He’d stopped her on the way to the truck once to give her a small blue sunhat, which had belonged to one of his grandchildren long ago. His wife had dug it out of a box in the garage upon hearing Mars had none, doing this for a stranger’s baby even though she was too frail for the task.
Every time Zaley introduced Mars as her son, she felt like people stared right through her to the lie. Micah guessed that he had been born last October or November. For his constant boo and as the Wiccan New Year, she chose Halloween for when people asked his birthday. And they did ask Zaley that in the relief line. When is his birthday, how much did he weigh, how was the labor, to which Zaley said Halloween, eight-eight, and ouch. They never saw the lie in her eyes. They just said how much he looked like her. Some of the younger mothers asked more, trying to be friendly, but Zaley dissuaded them by being polite yet standoffish. She was anxious almost to the point of phobia that Micah, Corbin, and Austin would be found out.
Micah had also picked Halloween because she liked the idea of throwing costume parties every year. She wanted to dress him up as a ghost when October rolled in, like Micah would still magically be around then without Zyllevir. Zaley kept waiting for the relentless baby care to get old and Micah come to her senses. That hadn’t happened yet. Mars was Micah’s son of the bridge, and she had accepted him whole-heartedly as her own. That was just Micah, tanned from the kayak, a little off in her head, and Zaley didn’t want to say goodbye to her either. No signs had ever gone up in Sausalito about a missing baby boy, and none of the rumors at the pier concerned him. How was that possible? How could that group realize a baby was gone and not be searching all over the area for him? It was so strange. Perhaps the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few, and it was more important to get everyone to Oregon or Washington, wherever they were headed on the fuel they had, than besiege the Bay Area for one little boy last seen in the arms of a zombie.
On some days, the crabs came up slowly. Other days, they came up fast. This was a middle day, neither fast nor slow, and she thought of the houseboat in which she’d be grieving this beautiful, terrible June. To go into that tent every night, to have Corbin whisper sweet things in her ear, to go to sleep together and wake up in his hold . . . it was burned indelibly into her skin, his muscular chest under her cheek, the rivers of fire he drew along the bare skin of her back, the way his arm was lodged under her ribcage in the mornings. Sometimes it hurt and she patted his arm. In his sleep, he’d shift it lower.
She was going to lose that, and everything else. Rather than shoot herself, she’d retreat to her houseboat and remember.
That evening, they ate well. The relief supplies had included a bag of pasta and a can of white beans, which they paired with crabmeat and fish. The fire warmed their campsite, none of them too worried about attracting ferals since they extinguished it at nightfall. Also, there were so many people between them and the wilder areas, so many campsites and fires, that it didn’t seem like theirs would be the first target. Water was boiling over the flames for the baby’s bottles for tomorrow.
Using the back of a spoon, Micah squished up food and delivered the mash to Zaley, who was feeding Mars in her lap. Mealtime always included a few towels. He pushed out a portion of whatever went into his mouth with his tongue. Zaley preferred to volunteer as an assistant at feeding time rather than diaper and bath time, and thank God she didn’t have to share a tent with him. Through the fabric of two tents came his ghostly boo in the dead of the night when he woke up. It was annoying to her, but kind of funny. Booooo.
He was also a human garbage disposal, which worked out well when they didn’t control what food they received. Almost everything they gave him to eat was enthusiastically accepted, although extra thrill was provoked by mashed up sweet potatoes. Zaley scraped food from the baby’s chin with their rubber-tipped spoon and pushed it back into his mouth. His little hand was resting over hers on the spoon. He didn’t want to take it away but just be a part of holding it. He didn’t care much for the airplane game either. It made the food take longer so he yelled when the boys tried to play it. Hurry up, dammit!
“Are they supposed to eat this much?” Zaley asked. Mars was a pig.
“Who the fuck knows? If he explodes, then we’ll know it was too much,” Micah said casually.
Mars tilted his head back to look at Zaley, who smiled and shoveled more food in. Then she set down his spoon and took up her plate to sneak a bite. Eating on the run was how one had to eat anything with a baby. She got in three spoonfuls before he fussed and grabbed at her plate.
“What? What are you keeping from me, you selfish cow?” Austin said in high-pitched, spiteful outrage for Mars. He did it in an English accent. “Feed your lordship or I’ll have no recourse but to dock you two shillings from your wages. Two shillings, wench!”
“Then open your mouth, you little parasite,” Zaley said, putting the spoon to his lips.
“Insolence! I never,” said Austin in a garbled, horrified voice as Mars chomped down. His drooling and fondness for chewing on the spoon heralded teething, according to the women in the relief line. But he wasn’t fussier than normal, and didn’t have a fever or diarrhea. The solitary father had said that the last symptoms weren’t necessarily indicative of teething. Annette had gotten offended and brushed him off, saying mothers just knew some things. Implying that he didn’t understand his baby as well because he was only a dad.
“Any news from the pier today?” Micah asked.
“It’s June,” Zaley said.
“We should be graduating,” Corbin said. “Filing out on
to the field, listening to speeches, getting our diplomas. I really wanted to get mine. I worked for that.”
“I didn’t want mine,” Micah said. “I just wanted to give a speech. You suck, Cloudy Valley High, and I’ve spent four years waiting to quit you. Your teachers are mediocre, your cafeteria pizza is gnarly, and in truth, I hated every minute I wasted within your not-so-hallowed halls. But good luck, graduates. You’re going to need it. This school has prepared you for nothing. Hi, Uma! Hi, Tuma!”
“I liked Cloudy Valley High,” Zaley said. It had been a refuge to her, a safe harbor from her home.
They quieted at an animal noise, but relaxed when it repeated. It was only a dog, and one that had a familiar bark they’d heard many times before. Mars finally had his fill of mash and squished more between his fingers. He’d have some milk from his bottle once Micah and Austin took him into their tent for the night.
“What! Get off me!” Austin squawked irascibly for the baby when Zaley and Micah started to clean off the worst of the mess from him in preparation for his bath. “You! You there, boy! No, no, no, I want the darky, not that mixed-breed Oriental! Make Medusa and her cunty assistant unhand me at once!”
“Aaaah,” Mars said. “Booooooo.”
“You can have him in a second,” Micah grunted as Corbin said, “He needs an exorcism.”
“Don’t you dare remove the bean crust from my roll of neck fat!” Austin bellowed. “I am saving that for later! Stop trying to take off my pants! Next you’ll take off my diaper and I pissed in that on purpose for warmth! Oy! Boy! Boy! My men! Stand together! Save me from these vile women stripping me down!”
“You’re on your own, says the mixed-breed Oriental,” Corbin said, who was dipping their sponge into the bucket of fresh water. Austin would clean Mars off more thoroughly with that once transferred.
Mars cracked up and Zaley did too, unable to help herself. Austin cried, “You mock me? You mock me! That’s three shillings from all of you, for cheek! I’ve never received such piss-poor caretaking in my life! Is this what passes for an operation on your side of the pond? Is my truck shirt clean? Boy! BOY! No, no, no, not you, darky, now I want the mixed-breed Oriental who I hired to do my laundry! When this is all done, I will only sleep in my truck shirt! Do you understand me? Not that hideous yellow plaid from last night that I crapped on to show you how I felt about it! Do I look like a common lumberjack to you? Do you know how blue the blood is in the veins of Lord Marcien Bell-Camborne-Mattazollo-Li? It is blue, boy! My blood is blue! My heart is blue! My balls are blue! And the silver spoon is wedged so far up my ass that I can tickle my blue esophagus with it!”
“Oh, for the love of fuck, take him then,” Micah said. She lifted the naked baby from Zaley’s lap and thrust him out.
“Give me that cute baby!” Austin ordered. For the fit he had thrown about keeping Mars with them, Austin now thought the baby was the most adorable child to ever set foot on the planet. He’d pick hanging out with Mars at the campsite over kayaking any time. Zaley delivered the mess of clothes and towels to Corbin, who got to work on the laundry. Then she picked up her plate to enjoy the last of her meal in peace.
“What is the meaning of this?” Austin exclaimed, waving the baby’s hands in the air. Mars laughed. “Curse your confounded incompetence! How many times have I told you that I only bathe in the milk squeezed from the teats of virgin cows?” Austin’s voice changed to wheedling. “But my lord, I beg you-”
This too was what Zaley would be grieving on her houseboat: the everyday simplicity of Corbin scrubbing off the clothes, Austin and Mars playing as Micah skimmed their plates clean with splashes of water and her hand. A lump came into Zaley’s throat. Fitting the gun down the back of her jeans, she stood up. “Be back in a few minutes.” It was what she said when she had to relieve herself, so she’d bought a little time to be alone.
“Don’t leave me,” Austin howled after her in his English accent. “I take it back! You’re not cunty at all. You’re only a twat!”
The walk to the pier was so familiar that Zaley hardly needed a flashlight. Once there, she leaned on the bars and looked over the dark water to the lights on the bridge and in San Francisco. June. It had no meaning now but this. And this was going to end, Corbin’s arm and the rude English lord, having a home where people were glad to see her.
“Is there a reason you’re wandering around in the dark, little girl?” Micah squeezed the bars at her side and winced.
“Just needed some time alone,” Zaley said. “What’s wrong?”
“The Cloudy Valley High almost valedictorian brilliantly gored her hand on a hook while fishing. It’s getting infected.” She turned over her left hand to show her palm.
It was too dark to see much of anything and Zaley had turned off her flashlight. “Do we have any antiseptic?”
“I used up almost all of it on that zombie bite from leaving the confinement point. Tomorrow one of the boys can do the fishing so I can hunt buildings around here for a topical antibiotic cream or tea tree oil or something. I thought the salt water would help, but it hasn’t.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes, sinking a hook with a super needle point into your flesh hurts. It was shocking to me, too.”
“I meant does it hurt now, you fucker.”
“It feels more warm than painful. Some pus came out of it yesterday. So why are you really out here? You had plenty of time alone today.”
“Does sex hurt?” Zaley blurted. “The first time?”
“It didn’t hurt me,” Micah said after a short silence that Zaley found incredibly embarrassing. “It tweaked a little at first, and then it just felt strange. By the end . . . it’s hard to explain. It felt like something that could feel good, but by then it was pretty much over. I liked the warm-up to it better than the actual it itself. But sex never felt bad or anything. It was interesting.”
“It hurts some girls, from what I’ve read.”
“Yeah, well, vaginas aren’t all factory-made to the same specifications. Neither are dicks. And a lot of guys rush things. If you haven’t done the necessary prep, you’re going to fail the test. Guaranteed. Have some finger action before you go full hot dog. Do you want me to pick up condoms for you while I’m hunting down antibiotic cream?”
Zaley was blushing deeply from the frankness. “Oh my God! No!”
“I’ll do it anyway. If Corbin gives you Sombra C or knocks you up, I’m going to kill you both. But I’ll start with you.” Micah laughed when Zaley elbowed her, and then she moaned and moved her left hand away.
“Sorry,” Zaley said. “I forgot.”
“Yeah, it’s beginning to hurt. A lot actually, every time I move my fingers. I’ll empty the pus from it tonight or tomorrow morning if I can and be on my way. You three can work out kayaking and baby duty.”
As Zaley had gone this far in the conversation, she might as well see it to the finish. Only with Micah would Zaley have initiated a conversation about sex. “How did you feel afterwards?”
“After sex? Fine.”
“Not like . . . you should have waited? Or you shouldn’t have?”
“No. Austin is a handsome guy and I like him. Who else was I supposed to wait for? I wasn’t holding out for marriage. And if you’re asking about regrets and feeling trampy, no. I enjoyed it. I’m just sorry it wasn’t quite the same fun for him. That was when he realized how he couldn’t fake it with a girl for the rest of his life.”
Zaley would have taken it personally, but that wasn’t Micah. Her mind was enviable. Zaley’s brain came with a lot more knots and thickets. They listened to the lapping of the water and the barking of the dog. Now it had a canine friend barking along. People were speaking in other campsites, their mutters a dull rumble.
As Zaley turned to San Francisco, it went dark. Literally everything went dark, that long block of lights extinguishing as one. The afterimages faded to nothing within seconds, leaving them alone in the night. Micah hissed and said, “
And there goes that.”
“They’ve lost electricity,” Zaley said blankly. She was losing the entire framework with which she had once looked at the world, and she would have to come up with another one. “Maybe it will come back on?”
They stood together for a long time, staring at the emptiness where the city had been. Zaley considered just how far this could go. It frightened her. In addition to hunting for antibiotic cream (and she knew beyond a doubt that Micah was going to take condoms just to tease) should she be hunting for seed packets? Gardening tools and irrigation materials, whatever those were? If the relief trucks stopped, could they pull enough out of the water to live on indefinitely? Could Zaley do that when she was alone?
“Look,” Micah breathed. In the east, the water was on fire. Not the water, a boat was floating free and burning like a torch in the blackness. Wind teased the flames into snapping tails. The light of it illuminated the helm and cockpit. Zaley and Micah crossed the pier to stand on the other side and watch it burn.
“The world is ending,” Zaley said.
“The world is fine. Our world is ending,” Micah corrected. People had noticed the flaming boat and were coming to the pier to see. Zaley didn’t worry overly much about Micah’s neck in the darkness, and her stamp had still been shielded by foundation at dinner.
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 129
