by Guy James
“This is something that hits close to home for you?”
“Yeah,” Sven said, “it does, and that’s because I was using the term myself, without even realizing what I was saying by using it. I was calling my friends who were victims of the outbreak, monsters. I’m ashamed of that now, and so I think it’s an important point to remember. Even if the virus is incurable, we shouldn’t take away the humanity of the victims or add insult to injury for the families of the victims by using the term ‘zombie.’”
“Understood,” Mallory said. She ran her fingers through her hair. “I have one last question…on the lighter side of things.”
“Alright,” Sven said.
“In preparing for this interview, my magazine polled our readers to see what questions they wanted us to ask you. I’ve asked you a few of those already, and, of course, omitted most due to time constraints. One that came up again and again, surprisingly enough, was: How are you adjusting to the lack of greenery in New York City?”
Sven looked confused. “Lack of greenery? You mean trees?”
“Yes, trees, nature in general, air quality, all of that. Take, for example, fall. You were here for fall, how did you think it compared to fall in Virginia?”
“Well,” Sven said, smiling, “I guess there were a few less colors here…definitely not as many leaves.”
Mallory laughed. “I grew up outside the city, and you’re right, there aren’t a whole lot of leaves here. That doesn’t leave many leaves to change colors.” She grinned.
Sven laughed. “Yeah, it is different, but it’s not all new to me. I spent part of my childhood close by, in Long Island, and my mom lives in Brooklyn now, so I’ve been to the city before. But you’re right, living here is a big change as far as the scenery. It’s a welcome change…not that I wouldn’t mind another park or two, but it’s a relief to be somewhere so different.”
“Okay, great. I’ve got all I need at this point. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me,” Mallory said. “I’ll show you a draft of the article before it goes to print, so you can give me your input. I really won’t print anything you don’t want me to.” Her gaze remained fixed on Sven as she stood up and extended her hand. Sven took it and they shook.
“Thank you, Ms. Lex.”
“Please, call me Mallory.” She smiled.
Mallory reached into her purse and took out a card case, from which she pulled a business card. “I know you already have my contact information, but here’s my card.” She picked up her things and lingered in front of Sven’s desk for a moment. “Hey, I’d like to speak with you some more...off-the-record. I know there’s a lot that you’re not telling me, and I won’t pry. You have every right to keep most of what you experienced to yourself. Maybe we can just talk over a drink at the end of next week, after the article is printed?”
Sven looked at her, then at Ivan, then back at her. “Sure,” he said. “That sounds good.”
He walked her to the door and opened it.
“I know you’re busy,” she said, “and it’s obvious you still have a lot of unpacking to do, so I’ll see myself out of the building. Maybe I’ll go bother the mayor. Do you know if he’s in?”
“I saw him earlier this morning, but I’m not sure.”
“That’s alright. Thanks again, Sven.”
“You’re welcome. Have a good day.”
“You too. I’ll be in touch.”
Mallory left. Sven stood in the doorway for a moment, then shut the door and turned to face the interior of the office.
“It’s time for you to find a new perch,” Sven said to Ivan. “And stop looking at me like that.”
Ivan meowed, leapt from the box he was sitting on, and began, without a hint of subtlety, to stalk his food bowl.
Sven watched Ivan until the cat had begun to gobble up his dry chicken and turkey kibble. Then Sven opened one of the boxes that he had left to unpack. Looking into it and seeing things that were not his, but that had been picked out for him by City Hall staff to fill his office, Sven felt some relief.
Every time he opened a box, even though he had taken little more than the clothes on his back when he left for New York City, he felt like a piece of Charlottesville was going to pop out and grab him.
Sven decided that because the current box was full of books that he had no intention of reading, it belonged in the closet. So he dragged it into the closet and shut the closet doors, feeling that he had accomplished a good deal of unpacking and settling in.
“That’s enough of that for now,” he said to himself.
Ivan had stopped eating to watch Sven drag the box, but had now resumed eating again, flinging pieces of kibble right and left and then chasing them down, gobbling them up and returning to the bowl again.
Sven smiled, sighed, and returned to his desk. He glanced at Mallory’s business card, then opened a drawer and put the business card in it.
His gaze was drawn to a pill bottle in the drawer. He set his jaw, looked away, and turned to the window. He gripped the sheathed machetes and looked out at City Hall Park.
The park was peaceful, and Sven felt the anxiety that was now his almost constant companion ease. In the park, there was a man in a suit sitting on a bench. The man rubbed his nose and sneezed. Sven tensed, closed his eyes, and tightened his grip on the machetes.
Behind him, the paperweight’s hand-carved hero strained against the double doors. The tips of the rotten fingers that had broken through the wood of the doors were a hair short of the hero’s eyes. Sometimes, when Sven’s own eyes were tired, he couldn’t make out the gap.
18
INTERVAL BETWEEN FOURTH AND FIFTH PERIOD, SIXTH FLOOR HALLWAY, STUYVESANT HIGH SCHOOL, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
“Hey,” a boy who Lorie didn’t know said, stopping Lorie in the hallway, “I saw your mom on TV last night.”
“She’s not my mom,” Lorie said. “Her name is Jane. She has custody of me now, but she’s not my mom.” She turned to walk away from the boy.
“Well I think she’s hot. Any chance I can get her number?”
Lorie heard the boy guffaw, then heard some tentative laughter from someone else. She turned around and saw that behind the boy were two other boys. All three were watching her and waiting.
“Not worth it,” Lorie said under her breath and turned around again. She knew that she would be late for her next class if she stood around with these idiots.
“Hey,” the boy called after her, “where you going? You didn’t give me your mom’s number yet.”
Lorie froze. “That’s it,” she said, under her breath. “That’s it.”
She whirled around and grabbed the boy’s shirt by the collar. She pulled him toward her, so that his face was an inch away from hers. He was almost a foot taller than she was, but he trembled as she held him in front of her. He glanced behind him at his friends, and, fueled by the embarrassment of being man-handled by a girl, shoved Lorie off of him, putting all of his weight behind the movement.
Lorie fell backward, a look of surprise blooming on her face. She bent her knees and did a backward roll, righted herself and sprang to her feet. She put her right leg behind her, adopting her favorite fighting stance, and trying very hard not to smile.
“I’m not like everyone else here,” the boy said, spitting. He was pointing at Lorie, jabbing his finger at the air. “I’m not hypnotized by you. I don’t care what the zombies looked like, how they smelled, or what you did with them. You’re not a celebrity. You’re nobody but a carrier of the infection, and you don’t belong here. You shouldn’t be here, spreading the virus to us.”
Students were gathering around the hallway confrontation. They were clutching their books and backpacks, looking uncertain.
“I’m not,” the boy said, still pointing at Lorie, “your friend. And my friends—” he pointed behind him at his friends, who moved backward, seeming to want to disappear, “aren’t your friends either. We’ll never be your friends, and you’ll never fit in w
ith us. Don’t you see how everyone avoids you and wants nothing to do with you? Don’t you see everyone whispering about you? Everyone here hates you. You and your fake mother and father need to go back to Virginia where you belong, where you can’t infect us.”
Lorie looked at him, paused for effect, then said, “Are you done?”
“Am I done?” the boy said, turning red. “Am I done? You’re the one that’s done here.”
“You shouldn’t put your hands on a girl. It’s not polite.”
“You grabbed me first, getting your disgusting zombie hands on me. I probably have the virus now. You started it by coming here, Lorie. You started all of this.”
“Fine,” Lorie said. “Now I’m gonna finish it.”
Just as the boy was opening his mouth to respond, Lorie skipped forward and planted a lightning fast front kick in the boy’s sternum. He flew backward, the spittle flying from his mouth with the breath that Lorie had knocked out of him, and landed in a heap in front of his friends. He lay there, gasping and coughing, while his friends stared wide-eyed at Lorie and made no move to help the boy up.
“Come on,” Lorie said. “You could use one more, and we still have a little time before next period. Come on, get up.”
“What’s going on here?” Mr. Voleseimer said, appearing behind the crowd of students. The students parted for him and he walked over to Lorie.
The boy stood up. “Nothing,” he said. “I fell.” He glared at Lorie.
“He did fall,” Lorie said. “It looked like it hurt.”
The boy went on glaring.
The bell rang.
“Well?” Mr. Voleseimer said. “Class...remember? You all have classes to be in unless this is your lunch period. I suggest you get moving.”
Lorie turned her back on the crowd of students watching her and walked to her next class. She was a few minutes late, but no one, including the teacher, said a word about it.
19
SVEN, JANE, AND LORIE’S APARTMENT,
SUTTON PLACE, NEW YORK, EARLY EVENING
Jane was pacing in the foyer when Lorie walked in.
“Hey,” Jane said, “how was school?”
Lorie put her backpack down and walked into the kitchen. “It was okay.”
Jane followed Lorie into the kitchen. “Are you hungry? Do you want a snack or something?”
“No, I’m okay.” Lorie glanced at the windowsill in the kitchen that Ivan liked. It was empty. “Is Ivan around?”
“He’s at work with Sven,” Jane said.
“Oh.”
Jane went to the sink, turned on the faucet, and began to clean some vegetables. “You remember—”
“Yes, I remember,” Lorie said, annoyed. “I remember.”
Lorie watched Jane clean the vegetables for a few moments, then said, “Do you think Dr. Westreich knows what he’s talking about?”
Jane paused, dropping a sprig of parsley. The running water swept the sprig into the drain, where it lodged and bobbed up and down against the flowing water. “Dr. Westreich...” She bit her lip, finding herself at a complete loss for words. “Dr. Westreich...is a professional. He knows...he knows what we went through and the serious long-term effects that kind of experience usually has on people. He knows how to help people work through that.” She snatched the sprig of parsley out of the drain and held it under the running water, focusing all of her attention on it.
“He’s too soft to understand this stuff. Has he ever faced the zombies? Has he ever had to kill a zombie? Has he watched his family and friends turn into zombies in front of him?”
“Lorie,” Jane said, turning the water off and turning around, “you know how Sven feels about that word.”
“What? Zombies? That’s what they are. Sven just has to say that because he’s a politician now.”
Jane held the sprig of parsley in her hand and said nothing.
“And,” Lorie said, “how can anyone who didn’t go through it help, anyway? And I honestly don’t see what there is to help. I’m fine. We’re all completely fine.”
“Lorie, it’s just for a little while, okay? We all agreed that we’d give it a shot to see if it helped. It hasn’t been long enough yet to write it off.”
“Yeah, yeah. Fine.”
“I’ll walk you,” Jane said, “when it’s time to go. We can hang out and relax until then.”
“I should do my homework.”
“Okay...sure. I’ll be here, getting some stuff ready for dinner.”
Lorie opened the massive, stainless steel refrigerator and looked inside.
“I can make you a snack,” Jane said.
“No, I’m fine. I’m just looking.”
“We have a lot of grilled chicken and some leftovers of that baked omelet you liked.”
“I know, I know. I’m just looking.”
“Okay.”
“What’s for dinner tonight?”
Jane hesitated, then said, “Turkey stew.”
Lorie’s face lit up. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ll make it spicy, just the way you like it.”
“Really spicy, to pour over rice?”
“Absolutely.”
“Cool. Okay, I’m gonna do some homework for a while.”
“Sounds good.”
Jane stood with her back to the sink and watched Lorie walk out of the kitchen.
Jane turned back around and looked down at the parsley.
“Forget the parsley,” she said under her breath, tossing the sprig she was holding back into the sink, “I have turkey stew to make.”
20
DR. WESTREICH’S OFFICE,
57TH STREET AND LEXINGTON AVENUE, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
The leather of the psychiatrist’s chair was glossy and sticky, and Lorie’s hands kept getting stuck to it when she touched it. The room was austere and dimly lit, its walls decorated with the obligatory diplomas and non-committal art prints. It smelled of disinfectant and flowers, but the smell wasn’t like the hospital smell that Lorie hated; it was strange and oddly pleasant.
“What’s that smell?” Lorie asked.
“What?” Dr. Westreich said, looking up from the file on his desk.
Dr. Westreich was sitting behind a great, mahogany desk in a chair that was too small, so that from Lorie’s angle, all she could see was his head and the top of his collar. It always made her think that he had no body and that his head was just an extension of the desk that nodded and said things.
“The smell in here,” Lorie said. “I like it.”
Dr. Westreich scratched his beard and then made a motion with his hand as if he were swatting at a fly. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, “something my secretary does.”
Lorie shrugged, turned away from the desk, and stared at the wall. She put her hands on the leather of the chair to push herself up higher in it. The sound of her hands tearing away from the leather made her cringe.
“Tell me, Lorie,” Dr. Westreich said, drawing out the words, “how is school?”
Lorie turned to the desk again and saw that Dr. Westreich’s eyes were now focused intently on her.
“It’s fine,” Lorie said, nodding.
“Fine,” Dr. Westreich repeated to himself. He scratched a note in his pad.
“And how are your new friends?” Dr. Westreich asked.
“They’re fine,” Lorie said.
“Fine,” Dr. Westreich repeated to himself. He scratched another note in his pad.
“What about your schoolwork, Lorie?” Dr. Westreich asked. “How is your schoolwork coming along?”
“It’s fine,” Lorie said. She turned away from the desk and stared at one of the black and white art prints on the wall. It looked like a flower made out of wire mesh.
“Fine,” Dr. Westreich repeated to himself. He scratched another note in his pad, sighing as he did it this time.
“It’s good that so much of your life is fine, Lorie,” Dr. Westreich said. “That’s very good. But is there anything that you�
��re unhappy with, anything that you’re unhappy about?”
“Unhappy with or about...” Lorie said. “Well, not everyone at school likes me.”
“Oh,” Dr. Westreich said. “That’s very g—I mean...tell me about that, Lorie.” He scratched another note in his pad and began to tap the pen against the pad in an irritatingly precise rhythm: a march.
“There are some kids who think I brought the virus back from Virginia and that I’m infecting everyone, and that Sven and Jane are too. But we’ve talked about that already.”
“We have talked about it, but it might be helpful to talk about it some more.”
Lorie shrugged. “There was a bit of a new development today, I guess.”
“Oh? Tell me about that.”
“A boy at school tried to pick a fight with me today. I don’t know him. He just stopped me in the hallway and started asking about Jane, like he wanted to ask her out or something.”
“Ask her out...for a date?”
“Yeah, it was really weird. But I think he was just trying to get my attention and rile me up. His point was that I didn’t belong here and that I brought the virus back and that I would never make any friends here and that everyone hates me.” Lorie looked at Dr. Westreich and smiled. “You know: the usual.”
“And how does that make you feel, Lorie?”
Lorie stared at Dr. Westreich. “Fine. It makes me feel just fine.”
Dr. Westreich let out a heavy sigh and put down his pen. “Does anything bother you, anything at all, at school or elsewhere?”
“You mean how some kids don’t want to be friends with me? No. Why should that bother me? Not everyone can be friends with everyone else.”
“And what about the resentment they feel toward you?”
