Darlene turns to look at me. My heart does that thing where it feels like it’s falling and jumping into my throat at the same time. Eve looks at me like she can’t believe what Darlene’s about to say, like she already knows what Darlene is about to say. That’s one thing I’ve never liked about “grown-ups.” Yeah, I’m pushing thirty, but I still don’t consider myself a grown up. Not like Darlene’s mom. Not even like Norm. It’s an odd feeling, really.
“Really?” Eve says, sounding surprised. “Jack?”
Darlene nods, reaches across the table and grips my wrist. “Yeah.”
Norm says, “Yeah, sure as shit.”
Abby chuckles and nods.
Cupcake barks.
Silence now. Eve’s wrinkled mouth is set firm onto her harsh face. I’m expecting her to laugh, to chastise me. But she doesn’t.
More relief.
Eve smiles. “I’m impressed, Jack. I really am. It’s tough out there.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I say.
“Oh,” Eve says, “I do.”
Now Eve gets up and walks over to me. I can hear my pulse thudding in my ears. Is she going to hit me? Is she —
She gets on her knees and throws her arms around me, laughing like a mad woman. “I’m so sorry I ever doubted you, Jack.”
I’m stunned. I look at Darlene through a sheen of her mother’s hair. What do I do? I mouth.
Norm says something like, “Got the calf, now he wants the old maid.”
Abby hits him. Mike laughs.
It’s odd how much this seems…right.
Darlene nods to me. Accept, she mouths.
I hesitantly pat Eve’s bony back. “Thank you. It’s okay,” I say. “I’m sorry, too.” I think the hatchet has been buried. It feels good. Really good. I have her mother’s approval…finally. It only took killing hundreds of zombies and trekking thousands of miles of wasteland to get it. But hey, some guys never get it.
Eve and I part as the door opens. Carmen, Darlene’s younger sister by a few years, stands in the threshold. I haven’t seen her in a few years. She was eighteen at the time, but still looked like a kid. She’s grown up since then. She’s not a spitting image of her mother like Darlene is. She looks more like Darlene’s father. She has long auburn colored hair, she wears almost down to the backs of her knees. Currently, it’s in a ponytail. Her shirt says ADOBE SOFTBALL CHAMPS 2011.
Darlene turns around and looks at her younger sister the same way she looked at her mother. But that silence doesn’t hang in the air.
Carmen says, “No fucking way!”
Norm bursts out laughing.
I chuckle a bit, too.
“Carmen, watch your mouth!” Eve says.
“Mom, I’m twenty-three,” Carmen replies.
“You’re still my baby,” Eve says.
Darlene gets up, and races across the dining hall, footsteps thundering, and hugs Carmen with sumo wrestler force. Carmen grunts, chokes, and stifles a cough. Darlene spins her around the room.
“Stop! Stop!” Carmen wheezes out.
Darlene sets her down and the two start laughing. I’m amazed. It reminds me of the way the old world used to be.
Darlene leans in and kisses Carmen on the cheek. Carmen makes a disgusted sound and wipes the kiss away.
“I’m so happy to see you,” Darlene says.
“Be a little less happy,” Carmen says. “You’re like a puppy, drooling and stuff.”
Darlene laughs.
Carmen looks at her as if she’s being serious, then she bursts out laughing, too. They laugh for about thirty seconds. Everyone in the dining hall smiles, including me. It’s a beautiful sight.
“Hi, Jack,” Carmen says after the laughter and giggles subside. She comes over to me and hugs me. I hug her back. She smells clean, unlike us. “I’m glad you kept my big sister safe. I’ve always had faith in you two.” She then looks over to her mother and sticks her tongue out.
“What?” Eve says, her hand on her breast, looking shocked. “I’ve always had faith in you two, too!”
“Ain’t what I heard,” Norm says.
“Easy, Norm,” Tim says, laughing.
“Yeah, don’t get on Eve’s bad side!” Mike shouts.
We all laugh again.
It doesn’t matter. None of that stuff matters anymore, whether we would last, or whether I was good enough for her — none of it matters because we’re here now. We’re all together.
44
Of course, things can’t always be fine and dandy, even when the table is piled high with food. Yes, food, I said. A feast.
The subject of Darlene’s father comes up halfway through the appetizers, which are the most crispy, fat, and cheesy mozzarella sticks I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.
As this subject falls over our small dinner party like a dark cloud, Norm and Tim stop making googly-eyes at one another. Abby looks on with a string of cheese dangling from her mouth. Mike says, “You got a little — ” pointing to the corner of Abby’s lips. She blushes. But he reaches up and wipes it away.
I roll my eyes.
“I saw him,” Darlene says.
Back to the depression.
“Oh,” Eve says. “Honey, you can’t be mad or upset. I had no choice.”
Darlene shows no signs of animosity toward her mother. Carmen’s bubbly personality is momentarily popped, though, and she says, “Really, D, Dad had it bad, and there were more outside of the house, roaming the streets and stuff.”
“I know,” Darlene says. Her voice edges toward darkness. “But you should’ve finished the job.”
I get chills. Job. The way she says it. Job, as if killing is as simple as a school project or cleaning the house. No, that’s not my Darlene. That’s someone else. All the saliva in my mouth, which was quite a lot while I savored the taste of the mozzarella sticks, dries up.
“Honey, you — ” Eve begins, but is cut off by Darlene.
“I do understand,” Darlene says.
“No, he wasn’t turned yet, D,” Carmen says.
I glance over at Tim, Abby, and Norm. They all look like they shouldn’t be here, like they’re listening in on some great secret. All eyes are facing toward the food in the middle of the table.
“We didn’t know much about the virus. Not as much as we do now — and that’s very little, sweetheart,” Eve says.
I notice something about her face. She doesn’t look as tired anymore. It’s like seeing her eldest daughter has breathed new life into her. For that, I’m glad. The past is the past, I hold no grudges about what this woman thought about me then. I’ve proved my worth.
“He was sick,” Carmen continues. “Sicker than I’ve ever seen him. Even sicker than the Monday morning after the Super Bowl. You remember how he downed almost two cases of beer every year?” She looks over to Tim and Norm, her eyes bugged out. “I’m serious. I’m not joking!”
Neither of them will meet her gaze.
“We had to leave him. They wouldn’t take any sick people — ” Eve says, but is again cut off. This time, by Carmen.
“They were killing the sick ones. We didn’t tell the military about him because we knew about Mrs. Branton down the street. Her husband said she was sick with the same symptoms, but he thought the military was going to help.”
“Military never helps,” Norm says. His voice is deadly serious.
“Amen,” Tim says, though he’s wearing military camouflage, I’ve always pictured him as one of those ‘Make love, not war’ guys.
“Military shot my brother,” Mike says. “At a Save-A-Lot. He wasn’t turned or sick, just trying to get food when all the madness started.”
Abby reaches her good hand out and puts it on his. They both smile at each other.
“Never helps, told you,” Norm repeats.
“They stormed the houses of the sick and they shot them in cold blood,” Carmen continues.
I find myself squeezing my hands together until my knuckles pop. The t
hought of the military not even trying to fix the mistake they undoubtedly let happen almost kills me. So many times, Darlene and the rest of my family have been in danger because of this disease. So many times I’ve lost people because of it. If I lost Darlene —
Darlene senses my anger and she looks at me, and when I see her, how hurt her face is, I melt. All the anger goes out of me like the air out of a popped balloon.
“So we did what we had to do with your father, Darlene,” Eve says. “I didn’t want to. He was so sick and delirious. I just wanted to help him, but even I knew I couldn’t do that.”
“I guess I was the only one who could,” Darlene says.
Eve and Carmen both look away. Eve sits her head in her hands. Carmen, this tough girl who’s not as young as she was the last time I saw her, starts to cry.
“Yeah,” Darlene says. “I did it.”
“He wasn’t your father anymore,” I say, breaking the silence. “And he wasn’t your husband. He was a zombie. It’s tough to say and come to terms with, but it’s the truth. At least we are all here together right now. This disease was like wildfire, a very dumb man once told me that, and it was the smartest thing he’d ever said. So we’re lucky the flames of the virus didn’t burn us. We’re lucky we still have some loved ones left. We’re lucky we’re safe, behind walls, food in front of us. I’m not preachy, I swear, but this,” I motion my hands all around the room, “is more than most people have ever had.”
Cupcake sets his head on my lap, looks up at me with those eyes, and whines. I break off a piece of a mozzarella stick and give it to him. He gulps it down, practically without chewing.
Everyone’s eyes are on me. I didn’t expect that, but I guess when you soliloquy like you’re in a Shakespeare play, it’s bound to happen. I see respect in Eve’s; love in Darlene’s; admiration in Carmen’s; respect in Mike’s; and amazement in Tim and Norm’s who are amazed because I’m no longer the puny kid they get to push around. I’m a leader. I’m a winner. I’m a survivor. Sometimes, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Three men come in. They wheel carts full of more food. Foods I didn’t know I missed until the aromas hit me square in the face: pizza, pastas, hot bread rolls and honey butter, steak, chicken tenders, creamed spinach, and so much more. Cupcake perks up, his tail wagging more rapidly than I’ve ever seen it move. He’s a good dog, though, not some street mutt who’ll bite your fingers off for an old chicken wing bone.
The food doesn’t perk us up much, though. It smells nice, and it tastes even better, but the lingering death cloud hanging over our heads is present — I think it always will be — and we can’t do anything about it.
45
Conversation comes back. It’s like the pumping pistons of a train, starting slow then running wild. Chug…chug…chug…chug, chug, chug, chug-chug-chug-chug-chug.
The men who brought the food in, all of them pretty plump, didn’t forget about my canine companion. From a tray near the bottom of the cart, one man pulls a stainless steel dog bowl piled high with dog food. It smells oddly satisfying, and Cupcake’s good manners go out the window, but not before he looks at me for permission. As I nod, he takes off and shoves his face into the bowl. His tail wags and we all share a laugh at the table. It’s an odd sound — the laugh — but I’m grateful for it.
Then we talk. We talk a lot. We talk about how we wound up where we were, how Darlene had a hunch and we had followed it. We leave out all talk of Klein and his Project Reset because talking about it will only make it realer than it was. We don’t linger on Herb, either. I don’t let them, though Norm really wants to. I want the conversation to stay on the lighter side. No more talk or death, no more talk of zombies, or failure. None of that. Happy thoughts, good food, family and friends. Like I said, we’re blessed to have made it this far. Don't harp on the negatives. Keep moving forward.
Darlene passes me a bowl of macaroni and cheese. It’s still steaming. Eve clears her throat. At first I think she’s chastising me for eating too many carbs — it wouldn’t be the first time. But then I realize she’s about to talk as Norm and Tim’s eyes go from their full plates to the woman who will someday be my mother-in-law. When she talks, you listen. It was true that time I vacationed with her and Darlene, and it’s true now.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering how I got here,” she says.
“You were quarantined,” Norm says, stuffing his mouth with a rolled up piece of pepperoni pizza.
“How she got to this position, dummy,” I say, looking across at him.
Norm snarls, pizza sauce on his upper lip, and he kicks me under the table.
“Yes, thank you, Jack,” Eve says. She pauses for a moment, surveying us all with her eyes. There’s a love in them, a love of the old world. I recognize it. I don’t know how many times I’ve driven through old neighborhoods that reminded me of the one Darlene and I are from in Chicago. It always reminded me that there was a life before all of this, and every morning when I wake up, I have to tell myself there’s a life after that life, too — I have to make it my own.
“Oh, Mom, not again,” Carmen says.
Eve shakes her head. Darlene gives her younger a sister a look that says Shut up.
“Darlene needs to hear it, Carm,” Eve says. She pauses again and as she reaches out to grab her glass of water, I see her fingers tremble. “They all do.”
She needs to tell the story, not only for us, but for herself, too.
“It all began when we reached camp…” Eve says.
46
“You can imagine how frightened I was without your father, Darlene,” Eve says.
Darlene nods.
“There wasn’t any face I recognized — ” Eve continues, interrupted by Carmen.
“And they evacuated our neighborhood all at once,” Carmen says, her hand goes to the back of her neck and she looks down at her plate. “I guess — I guess they didn’t make it, you know?”
We all nod. Oh, we know very well.
“The man who was in charge was young and quite handsome,” Eve says. “But he was weak. He couldn’t control the people. When things go as wrong as they did here, people have their ways of coping.”
True.
“People are not inherently good, however,” Eve says, “and these are the people we were stuck with. There was three factions within the camp. Families were kept in their own housing, located on the west wing of the park, women and men on the south and east, respectively. These men and women — ” She shakes her head, picks up her glass again with trembling fingers, and drains it. “I’m being modest,” she says. “It wasn’t the women. No, it was mostly the men. Not all the men. When there are no rules or consequences, certain types can smell it from a mile away.”
“Mom,” Darlene says. Her voice sounds choked. She reaches out and takes Eve’s hand. Eve gives her an appreciative glance. It’s just for a split second. I think she’s on the verge of tears and if she looked at her daughter, who was presumably dead an hour ago, any longer, the tears would flow.
“The men grouped up. The mob mentality. They wanted the family wing with its back to the sea. They claimed it was safest from the…the zombies.” Eve rolls her eyes, smiles a little. “I know it wasn’t as safe as they’d thought. The zombies have a way of finding us no matter what. They wanted it nevertheless. The camp’s leader Francis, that young and handsome man, was no match for the turn of his people. The few military types he had with him were swallowed up by the mob mentality. They joined with the men who wanted the family base. They had guns. They had bloodlust in their eyes.”
“Mom, stop,” Darlene says. “I don’t want to hear this.”
Eve turns a cold eye on her eldest daughter. It’s a gaze that makes my heart feel like it’s no longer pumping blood, but ice water instead.
“You must hear this, honey,” Eve says. She sounds motherly and I think that’s what makes what she says next so chilling. “Because, Darlene, I want to make sure you unde
rstand the zombies are not the only things we must worry about. There are far worse things out there and in here — ” She taps the left side of her chest. “Things waiting to get out, waiting to consume.”
Darlene nods. Norm and Abby stare at this middle-aged woman with wide eyes.
“The men took over the camp. But that wasn’t enough. A week later, Francis was hanging from a tree. The few men and women who were on his side were gutted, headshot, ripped apart. The roots drank their blood greedily. Women were raped, families torn apart. A new leader emerged, standing on a mound of corpses. His name was Walter Rockman. I knew him from my first day in camp and I knew him much more intimately later on,” Eve says, shaking her head. She looks to be on the verge of vomiting.
“He was a dentist before all of this,” Carmen says. “Dentists — fucking evil bastards.”
Norm chuckles. Then quickly apologizes for his outburst, before I can kick him under the table.
“Walt ordered the execution of thirty-eight survivors once word came in that there would be no help from the government,” Eve says.
“Not much of a government left after that point,” Carmen says.
“Has there ever been?” Tim muses. There’s no humor in his voice.
“Amen,” Carmen says. She reaches out and grabs the neck of the champagne bottle. She chugs it.
“Why thirty-eight?” I ask.
Eve shrugs. “I asked Walt that one night. He had said there was no specific reason other than he knew our food supplies wouldn’t last much longer with all these mouths to feed and thirty-eight was his favorite number.” Eve laughs. “As if he were feeding the people here at all. The most they got was bread and dirty water.”
“How close were you, Mom?” Darlene says. Red creeps up her neck and cheeks.
Eve looks at Darlene for a long moment. The only sound is Cupcake licking his bowl, the clink of the glass hitting the table leg and the wet thwap of his tongue.
“You must understand, Darlene,” Eve says. “I did it to survive. I love your father. I will always love your father. I’ve loved him since I was seventeen and he took me out to the Rock and Roll Café for a milkshake.” She smiles, eyes glazed over with the memory. “He danced so badly.” A single tear spills down her face, rounding her gaunt cheeks, ending at the corner of her grin.
Jack Zombie (Book 5): Dead End Page 10
