by M. Van
“Aunt Maggie was visiting from Canada when all hell broke out,” she said with a plastic smile. “She was kind enough to take care of me.”
“Really,” David said incredulously. I could tell he didn’t buy it.
“Yep,” Ash added for good measure. David shrugged. His eyes hovered over us for a second.
“Well, we should try and work together, and with a little luck, we might be able to ride out the storm.”
“You’re not heading for a safe zone?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you report in or something, being a doctor and all?”
“I think they have it well under control, and there are people I can assist around here.” His mouth widened into a fake smile that would do Ash proud, showing pearly white teeth.
“I should be going,” he said and grabbed his jacket.
The door closed behind him, and I looked out the window. David stood frozen for a second, the visor of his helmet up as he watched the house. He looked around the neighborhood, turning on his heels before he took off in a jog. Not sure what that was about, I turned to Ash.
“Aunt Maggie?” I said with a frown. Ash ignored me.
“I don’t like him,” she said. I moved to where she lay on the couch and sat down on the table.
“He and William did help us,” I replied. The logic of the situation told me to trust them—they hadn’t done us any harm—but somehow something gnawed at my gut. An eerie feeling swept over me. Mars had warned me not to trust anyone. I swore that remark of his had started to make me paranoid.
“You heard what he said. I think he told us more than he wanted to let on, and he didn’t say anything about the leg,” Ash said sharply.
“What about the leg?” I asked. Ash sat up and started to peel off the bandages. My mouth fell open when she showed me a healing wound. There was still a bad gash, the flesh torn, tender, and swollen, but you could see it was healing.
“How is that possible?”
“Are you duh-ta-duh or what?” she said with a snarl. God, I should get myself a Brooklyn slang dictionary, but the reference wasn’t hard to miss. I was ready to hit her with a nasty retort when she added, “You haven’t looked in the mirror lately, have you?” Her tone had changed to serious, and I waited for an explanation.
“That gash on your face? That should have been a really nasty scar.” My hand moved to my face where I felt the relatively smooth skin. A meager burn-like scar had remained after the crash on I-678. There was a line that reached from my temple to my jaw, but she was right: it should have been much worse. “I forgot about that.”
I turned to Ash. She avoided my gaze while she fiddled with the blankets. Pieces started to fall into place. Had she noticed my face had healed? Had she reasoned the bite on my shoulder caused it?
“That’s the reason you went out there?” I asked, bolting up from the table. “You set yourself up to get bitten.” Anger built inside me. My foot slammed a kitchen cabinet. The wooden panel cracked under my boot.
“Maybe you have been too busy to notice, but you’ve been doing pretty awesome for someone who hasn’t been off chemo for that long,” Ash said. “You’re hauling me around, kicking zombie butt, all without breaking a sweat.”
Her words filtered in while I gaped at her. Her reasoning didn’t stop the anger that rose inside me.
Ash continued. “It wasn’t my intention to-”
Seething, I cut her off in a loud voice. “Dammit, I thought you were suicidal, not insane.” I kicked the cabinet again. This time the door broke open, trapping my foot between panels. I hopped on the other foot and gripped the counter to regain my balance. With some effort, I struggled to yank my boot out. There was a barely audible chuckle behind me. I flipped around to see Ash bury her face under the covers. I let out a frustrated groan, grabbed a pack of instant noodles off the counter, and hurled it at her head.
“You little shit,” I called out. A pack chips followed the noodles. Ash dodged the noodles but caught the chips full on in her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said without the sincerity from the night before. “I won’t do it again.” I walked over and yanked her legs up, careful to watch her injury. She responded to my action with a disgruntled “hey” as I sank onto the couch and placed her legs on my lap.
“Ah, bite me,” I said and glanced at her from the corner of my eye. I shouldn’t kid myself. I knew where her intentions came from. I understood the way she’d been feeling, all sick and helpless. I couldn’t blame her for that. I’d had some pretty screwed-up thoughts of my own, running down the halls of JFK. To me, there was nothing worse than a disease that drags you down until you’re so dependent that you need someone to wipe your ass when you’re in your twenties. I reached out and placed a hand on her cheek. “You do look better, though.”
“Yep,” she said with a smirk, “Now we’re a pair of superhuman, zombie-butt-kicking badasses.”
“Yeah, right,” I said, not sharing her enthusiasm. “What about the doctor?”
“What about him?”
“Like you said, he knew things,” I said. “What if he’s been watching us?” I knew I sounded like a paranoid freak, but I couldn’t help it. I blamed Mars, and if I ever saw him again, I would sure as hell kick his ass for that.
Ash’s expression changed, although she didn’t change into that scared little kid I had seen the night before. Still, I read the concern on her face. I narrowed my eyes, but she avoided my gaze.
“He spoke about both of us,” she said in a low voice.
The more I thought about it, the more the man freaked me out. Uneasy, I shifted, stretching my long legs under the table. Something caught underneath my boot, and it cracked. Curious, I bent to look at it. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I picked up the u-shaped glass test tube. Blood trickled down the side where the glass had cracked.
“Shit,” I said in a soft voice. “What is he playing at?”
“He took my blood for testing,” Ash said in an unusual, high-pitched voice.
“That son of a bitch,” I said and followed it with a whole range of foul words that would have done Ash proud if she hadn’t gone bone white. This was why that bastard had kept scanning the floor—he must have lost it yesterday. I cursed myself for letting my guard down with Dr. David. At the sight of Ash’s thousand-mile gaze, one that I hadn’t seen since that first day, I dropped the tube and grabbed her shaking hands.
“Talk to me,” I said. She looked up through moist eyes.
“I won’t be a lab rat anymore,” she said through a shuddered breath. “I won’t. I won’t.” She shook her head, repeating the words.
I glared at her. I presumed to understand her, having undergone a similar bad experience. I realized I didn’t understand. I absolutely didn’t. I had no idea what went on in that head of hers, but I felt eager to protect it. She had captured my heart with her defiant attitude and foul mouth. Knowing she would hate it, I scooted closer to lift her on my lap. She was fifteen, or so she said, but too fragile for her age, so skinny I was afraid I’d break her in half. Strangely enough, she didn’t resist but wrapped her arms around me. I held her tight and felt her shuddering breaths on my neck. Her shoulders heaved as she sobbed against mine.
Thoughts spiraled in my mind as she cried. Dr. David had left a bad vibe behind when he left. It triggered a primal urge to run. Was it Dr. David that Mars had tried to warn me about? If it had been, how had David known where to look for me, and what was his deal trying to hang out with us? The thoughts kept me up long after Ash had calmed and fallen asleep on the couch.
It was late afternoon as I watched two zombies milling around the yards across the street. There were no human qualities left in the way the creatures lurched over the grass and tripped over garbage, which meant they must have been some of the first to turn. I sipped the whiskey and drew my eyes from the zombies to let my gaze fall on Ash. Mars had warned me to avoid the military and people in general. I figured Dr. David fitted that vague description perfectly.
It was time to leave.
| 23
Shame and awkwardness about Ash’s breakdown settled in the morning, and she stopped avoiding me. Apparently, she didn’t like showing feelings of insecurity, especially with strangers, and I admittedly shared that sentiment. Despite everything, in essence, we were still strangers. Ash hadn’t told me much about herself, and I hadn’t told her about me. It occurred to me that we should work on that. However, Ash not knowing me came as a blessing. She didn’t know the self-absorbed person I had become. Of my friends, Emily had been the only one who could stand to be around me, and I had left her behind at an airport. Maybe it had had something to do with being stranded in the zombie apocalypse, or that I hadn’t been able to crush every bit of hope that Mars had left me with—a hope that knocked dying from cancer out of the number one position of things to worry about.
Either way, I refused to let Ash meet the person I used to be. Even though she had figured out the healing bit and seemed to have placed her trust in it, I refused to believe it. I didn’t want to leave her with misplaced hope, but it wasn’t my place to keep it from her. Ash should know what I had learned.
She didn’t seem that surprised after I had told her what had happened in that alley near I-678 and heard what Mars had said about the lab, about not surviving the tests, and about avoiding people. She watched as I paced the room. I felt stupidly nervous, and for some reason, I couldn’t stop checking the street outside. Even though Ash didn’t voice opposition when I suggested leaving, I still felt a need to convince her.
“I know it’s farfetched, but I’ve had this feeling of being followed for a while, even before Dr. David showed up,” I said. “What if he’s been stalking us and you getting bit gave him an opportunity? What if he’s connected to this lab that Lieutenant Marsden spoke of?”
“Do you trust this Lieutenant Marsden?” Ash asked in a calm voice.
I turned to look at her. “He saved my life. He was supposed to shoot me in that alley,” I said and paused. “Yeah, I do.” Admitting it aloud felt strange because I had known the man for mere hours. Ash cocked an eyebrow and grinned.
“You like him.” Amusement showed on her face. I glared at her to convey the stupidity of her words. I knew I’d failed when my cheeks heated.
“You do,” she said with a giggle. “You like him.” She let herself fall over on the couch from laughter.
“Shut up,” I said. I chucked a pillow at her, and let myself fall into the recliner. I let out a long breath, afraid to admit I did like him. He had been my reason to keep going. I’d hoped it wouldn’t cloud my judgment. I didn’t want to make paranoia-induced decisions.
“Well,” Ash said after she’d composed herself, “you don’t have to worry about me. I never liked that scumbag doctor, whatever his deal is. That bastard stole my blood.”
I glanced at her and bit my lower lip. I had expected Ash to be a harder sell, but I was glad I didn’t have to explain this threatening feeling. I didn’t exactly know what it meant, myself. “So it’s settled. We go.”
“We go,” Ash said. I sensed relief added to her doubt, which made me feel a little better.
The next day, I recovered Ash’s wheelchair. I found it in the same spot, turned over on its side. I also found the gun I had lost. The yellow truck was gone, though. Someone had come for that truck, and I wasn’t eager to meet any friends of its former owners, which gave me another reason to leave this place.
I left a backpack with some supplies at the front door of the redbrick house. No one opened after I knocked, but I left the backpack propped against the door. My heart ached every time I remembered the look on the woman’s face, but I didn’t know what else to do.
William came by a couple of times without the doctor. He came to check on Ash, but the only thing he seemed after was cheese crackers. He traded me coffee for some. William seemed to be a good guy, but we had made our decision, and after Ash’s leg had had a few days to recover, we went through with it.
With the Edge packed, we drove southeast across a bridge over water as we headed toward the Atlantic. I had never expected openness like this near the city. Heavy clouds hung over us, about ready to spill, but they couldn’t spoil the amazing view.
In the late afternoon, we arrived at a place called Neponsit. Ash guided me with the good old-fashioned map I had drawn myself. On our way, we had evaded the zombies in similar ways as before by either passing through at a leisurely pace or by going around them.
On Rockaway Beach Blvd., I took a sudden turn that caught Ash off guard and made her spill her soda. She scowled at me, but her demeanor changed when the ocean at the end of the dead-end street came into view. Apparently, she had never seen the ocean. I would have savored the moment with her, but the house on the right occupied my mind. I had googled some possible options before most of the Internet had become too slow for my nerves to handle. I had used Street View to scope out some of the houses, and this place had caught my attention.
Similar to the place we had been staying at, there was a garage with high-placed windows. A low fence surrounded the property to prevent zombies from venturing too close to the house. The place looked like a solid block of concrete that should give intruders of any kind enough trouble getting in. Lucky for us, the place sat empty.
A few of the zombies had settled on our new street. I had to take out two with my machete. Their bodies were mere flesh over bone. They must have been some of the first to turn, and the decay mentioned on the news became obvious. They had ignored their sense of smell and come raging from out of nowhere. Their hunger must have left them even more violent.
The houses in this area were big, expensive, and filled with all kinds of goodies. They might attract the wrong kind of people. For now, who cared? We lived in a fortress. There was even an elevator that went from the garage to the first floor. Ash laughed her ass off about that.
The plain white square block of the concrete exterior revealed nothing of the luxuriously decorated interior. Modern lines of blue-and-red paneled walls stood out against the white tiles in the living area. A black-and-white painting of the Brooklyn Bridge covered a sizable amount of another wall. Upstairs we found Greek-styled bathrooms, bedrooms, a gym, and an empty hot tub on the roof terrace. We agreed to use the same setup as before, living room and kitchen. I hauled a mattress down to make a sleeping area in a corner of the living room. The room was big enough that you didn’t even notice it there. I moved the huge flat-screen to an adjacent room. We had no use for it. Some emergency broadcast channels had remained on the air with information about safe zones and other instructions, but that wasn’t for us.
“Food will be a problem in a couple of days,” I said, handing Ash a plate of beans with a side dish of canned peaches. She dug in without complaint. For a moment, I gazed at my own creation on the plate. God, what I wouldn’t give for a decent meal.
“We should head into town,” Ash said, slurping down the brown slush. She remained eager to get out there, although I believed for different reasons than before. I was scared that she thought she’d actually become superhuman. Not that she was an idiot. After what had happened at Bergen Beach, she knew the dangers but waved them off, and the zombies scared her even less than before. I was afraid that she believed that the bite might have cured her cancer. Hope scared the shit out of me, believing would be a completely different ballpark.
“I want to get enough to get us through the winter.”
“Why bother?” she said with a shrug. “Everyone’s been evacuated, there’s plenty to go around. Besides, I don’t want to be stuck inside the whole winter. It’ll be like shopping.”
I knew picking up supplies wouldn’t be as bad for us as it would be for other survivors, but there were still many risks that came with it.
“You can’t be careless about this stuff,” I said. “We need to prepare and learn how to survive because I sure as shit don’t know what I’m doing.” My voice came out high-pitched, which made me sound like
an insane person. It agreed with the direction I felt I was heading. Ash looked up from her plate with a curious glance.
“Fine,” she said with a shrug. “You don’t have to get all pissy about it.”
Having lost my appetite, I set the plate on the table with a clank. Ignoring Ash, I opened the sliding door and walked onto the Tar Beach, as she liked to call the roof terrace over the garage. The door slammed shut behind me.
I leaned over the railing. My gaze became lost over the ocean as waves slammed onto the beach. It was a beautiful day with clear skies, but I wished for the brisk wind to die off and the late October sun to be a few degrees warmer.
We picked up our routine of patrolling the streets every night, letting the zombies around our block roam to act as an alarm. After we had thinned them out around the rest of the neighborhood and hadn’t come across a single human being inside of two weeks, we stopped going out as much. It was as if no one had ever lived in these homes. We became the only people alive in our small part of the world.
Acceptance of or situation made me gravitate toward my old convictions. I built walls to hold people at a distance, and I was good at that; at least, so I let myself believe. In truth, no screaming, cursing, or door slamming had kept my family away. Ten years of treatments and chemo, of miraculous remissions, and the slap in the face when everything started over from the beginning, but my family never moved from my side. The third time around, the doctors told me I wouldn’t win this battle, and I would lose the war. That shut me down. It drove me over the edge. I would not do this to my family. I would not let them witness how this disease would eat me from the inside out, how it would wither me into a pool of misery and eventually death.
I could still see the expression on my sister’s face when I’d slammed that door in her face, her quivering lips, the hurt in her eyes, and that damn kettle of soup in her hands. At least now I had kept them from further scars. I was sure they thought me dead.
