The Loving Dead

by Amelia Beamer

  “I could go get my car real quick and come pick you up, and then we could go straight to the fire station on Skyline and let them know what’s going on.”

  “Your car.”

  “Shit, you’re right.” Her car was at the damn Holiday Inn by the airport. That seemed so long ago. “Someone else will have a car I can borrow.”

  “And they’ll be there with the keys?”

  “Probably.” She knew he heard the doubt in her voice. Jamie’s van would be there, surely. And Jamie’s keys would be in Kate’s bedroom. Somewhere.

  “Couldn’t we just flag down a car, or stop at one of the houses and ask to use the phone?”

  Kate pushed her hair away from her face. “We look like we just murdered someone,” she said, her voice cracking. Walter hadn’t been awake when she’d done what she’d had to do. She didn’t want to tell him. “Would you let us into your house?” Her cheeks grew hot, and she curled her toes in her wet shoes. He always noticed, when he was going down on her, whether she curled her toes. He seemed to take it personally if she didn’t.

  He sighed. “You’re right. I’d better walk with you.” He didn’t move.

  The Zeppelin rocked slightly from something moving inside it.

  “Contents may unsettle during shipment,” he said, looking up at the Zeppelin.

  Kate pulled Walter to his feet, ignoring his pain noises. “Get a fucking move on already,” she said. “They’re going to get out, and I can’t lose you, too, damn you.”

  “You’re next,” Walter said thoughtfully. Kate willed herself not to slap him. Just a little slap, to try and knock some sense into him. She squeezed his wrist, harder than she had to, and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. She started walking, and he managed to come along. He leaned against her, and his weight on her shoulders made her feel strong. Capable. She could get through this. They would get through this.

  “Just think, every step is getting you closer to your chiropractor,” she said. “Sort of.”

  “My chiropractor would tell me to walk it off, anyway. That’s the best way to jostle things back into place. Best for me, anyway, now that my knees are shot and I can’t run anymore. No, I’m ready to go home. Chalk it up to a nightmare.”

  She led him down the hill. He fell, and she helped him up. She walked into a thistle bush. Her shins prickled. Thistles were the worst. First they itched, and then they hurt. She remembered, too late, that there was a path that would have taken them down the long way, around the hill. It was paved. She led them through the break in the wooden fence to the street.

  “The fire station is on the way,” she said. “Five minutes. We have to tell someone about the Zeppelin, at least.”

  “Five minutes,” he said. “I can do that.”

  They didn’t talk for a while. Kate was aware of the sight they would make, their clothes covered in blood and vomit. Yet only a few cars drove by, and they didn’t slow. That was disconcerting. Why hadn’t anyone noticed the Zeppelin?

  The familiar scenery was calming, though Kate glanced over her shoulder every minute or so, just to make sure they weren’t being followed. It warm in the sun, though the shade was comfortable. The wind blew inland from the ocean but lost its sea smell by the time it came this far, bearing instead the smells of warm dirt and sage. They walked along the edge of the road; the streets up in the hills had been paved long before there were laws about leaving room for sidewalks and drainage channels. She noticed the lettering on a drainage grate: EMPIRE FOUNDRY, on the top. OAKLAND, CALIF, on the bottom. Must have been back before the country adopted the two-letter system for states.

  The trees held onto green despite the drought. The valley to the right of the road was steep, held together by tree roots and engineering. Expensive-looking houses were built into that hill, supported by stilts and concrete; they’d be the first to slide during the next big earthquake. For Sale signs littered front yards; one signpost had lost its sign, and looked for all the world like a little cross for crucifying a one-armed midget. There was a house still under construction, its skeletal wood beams and bare cement a pronouncement of hope against the economic downturn. You had to walk two flights down just to get to the front door, though the driveway was at street level. The front yards on these places were barely large enough to park a car. The nicer yards were finished with smooth, oyster-sized stones. Most of them, though, were dirt. On the opposite side of the road, the hill rose too high to build into, at least not until more people wanted to buy more houses. That hill was held up by a brick wall, grown over with moss but still recognizable as human work. They walked past it. The road sloped downhill. She tried to keep Walter from stumbling. He was her responsibility. He needed her.

  She looked to her right, downhill. They’d seen that view earlier, in better form. The buildings of downtown Oakland, and beyond that, the fog of Carl Sandburg’s cat feet. The Bay Bridge, and San Francisco. Alcatraz. It seemed like a dream. Everyone liked dreaming, at least, everyone who had good dreams did. A metal rail separated the road from the steep drop, to keep drivers from plummeting. Underneath it, into the hill, black steel girders were bolted together with wood, holding a berm of dirt to keep the hill in place. A long, black plastic drainage pipe descended down the hill into trees, valley, and nothingness. She paid attention to the scenery, not allowing herself to think about what she’d done.

  Kate had walked this road several times a week since she’d moved here, to hike at the Huckleberry trail. Walking always gave her a chance to think, to gather up all of her thoughts and put them somewhere. Walking now, grateful for a moment of quiet, she thought again of Jamie. The way she kissed. It started to make sense, and Kate felt cold, though the sun was shining. If zombieism could come from a bite, surely it could come from a kiss. Maybe that’s how Jamie and the pink-haired girl had each gotten it. If that were true, Kate suspected it was just a matter of time before she had it. There had to be an incubation period. She did some calculations. If she’d kissed Jamie around ten last night, after sunset, and it was past two now, it had already been sixteen hours. Maybe it went faster if you were kissed by someone who’d already turned. And Jamie had lupus; maybe her immune system was too busy attacking her body. Maybe Kate still had some time, or maybe she was resistant somehow. She hoped so. And she hadn’t kissed Walter, or Michael, not on the lips at least. Maybe that mattered. She ought to have someone tie her up, just in case, but she didn’t want to ask Walter. He didn’t even have a belt anymore. Where was Michael when she needed him?

  Walter spoke. “I hate to bring this up, but what are we going to tell them, exactly? At the fire station?”

  Kate gestured with the hand that wasn’t supporting him. “That there’s a big mess? Someone has to deal with it. People with ladders and weapons and uniforms.” Her shins itched from the thistle bush. She couldn’t lean down to scratch them without dislodging Walter. “You know why women like men in uniforms? Because we know they’ve got a job.”

  He ignored the joke. “You think they’ll believe us?” He was recovering. That was good.

  Kate looked at her shoes. She had been trying to ignore the squish that accompanied each step. “You think… oh, shit. You’re right.” She felt a rush of panic. She could be tried for murder. “We don’t have to tell them exactly what happened. For all anyone knows, the zombies killed each other. Or the crash landing did it. Not me.” She wouldn’t allow herself to grieve. Grief was a luxury. Kate knew that once you were turned into a zombie, you didn’t get to come back.

  “But they’ll want to know how we survived. They’ll surely take us into custody. I mean, look at us. Smell us. We’re a mess, and it’s all evidence. We will have some ’splainin to do.”

  Kate considered. He had a point. Damn him. She’d be the one who could be tried for murder, even if it was self-defense. She had to operate as if she were going to live beyond the next few hours, or however long it might take before she turned into one of them. If she turned. “We’d be safe for the mea
ntime, though, even if they did lock us up. And you must have a good lawyer.”

  “I’ll forgive you the reasoning behind that last remark.” He took his arm away. “I can walk on my own now.”

  “What? I just meant you were well connected. I thought you were.” He’d probably been joking, but the implications of his remark still stung. As if she’d just assumed that he regularly got himself into legal trouble, despite the fact that he was thinking like a criminal. Her head hurt. Kate reminded herself that she didn’t know Walter very well. He’d never told her, for example, what he did for a living. That information would have been too personal.

  They came to the end of the block, to the three-way intersection. When Kate glanced back to check they weren’t being followed, she saw a sign: “Fire Warning Today: Extreme. Be Fire Safe!” The “Extreme” was written in yellow letters on a black background.

  “I didn’t realize the warning went above High,” Kate said. “Is it fire season already?”

  “Either that, or the fire department has hired a marketing executive straight out of fast food.” He must be feeling better.

  “I could go for a cheeseburger,” Kate said.

  “You’re hungry, after all of that? I think I still have vomit in my nose.”

  Kate found a tissue in her pocket, crumpled but still clean. She handed it to him. They stopped walking while he blew his nose a few times. It sounded lumpy.

  “Well, that’s fixed my appetite, not that I had one.”

  He held the tissue away from himself, making a face, and then put it in his pocket. “Littering is a sin,” he said.

  Kate spat onto the dirt. Her throat was still sore. She hoped she wasn’t getting sick. Maybe that was how it started; maybe she’d be a zombie by sunset. You didn’t see a lot of zombies during the day, at least not in movies. “Look,” she said. “That’s the fire station, right there.” It was a small building, on the far side of the little road.

  “Yes, but they’ll take us into custody, you bet your sweet bippy. This joint won’t have a holding cell, so they’ll take us downtown, and book us. Separate cells. And what happens when some big guy turns into a zombie? You can take care of yourself, Katie Kay, but I am old and feeble.” He wasn’t; he was waiting for her to contradict him. She didn’t.

  “Well, we have to tell someone.” She wasn’t sure now. If she did only have a few hours to live, she definitely didn’t want to spend it in a booking cell, never mind all of the other unfortunate people she’d end up eating. “Plus I’d like to shower one last time before the world ends.”

  “A shower sounds like heaven. Haloes and harps and wings and Jesus jokes. I suppose you must have some clothes I can borrow. We should burn these clothes. So let’s just call them instead.”

  Kate took her phone from her pocket, and then Walter’s. “Still no service. We’re in the hills.” She glanced behind them. “Nobody following us, either, at least.”

  “No, not from your cell, baby. Call from your house. Block the number so it’s anonymous. Tell them we saw the Zep land. The Zeppelin land, whatever. For all anyone knows, we weren’t on the thing.”

  “You didn’t pay with a credit card?”

  “Oh. You’re right. Damn. Your name isn’t on it, though.”

  They walked past the fire station. The door opened, and a truck pulled out, sirens and lights blazing.

  “Maybe they already know. I can’t imagine they don’t,” Kate said. The truck turned left, the same way they were going, in the opposite direction from the Zeppelin.

  “Let’s go to my place,” she said. She was sweating from the sun. The thing about California was that the sun was warm, but the air wasn’t. There just wasn’t enough shade to go around.

  He sang, “Let’s go to my place!” then stopped. “Sorry, On the Town. Before you were born. Yes. Your place. That’s one of my rules, when a pretty girl invites you up, you go.” His singing voice wasn’t that bad. Better than her first boyfriend, and she’d fallen in love with him because he sang and played the guitar; he smelled of leather and tobacco smoke, and he was gentle and knowledgeable where it counted, though he’d broken her heart. Several times. They’d called one another Mulder and Scully. That was back when love was all-consuming, for her friends, too; they talked about it often. The entire day was structured around seeing one’s boyfriend. The guys she’d dated since Mulder had been much less pathological, but ever since him she’d been trying to understand why she was attracted to some guys—or some people—and not to others, even if they might like her. A guy liking her didn’t necessarily make her like him. It was some combination of charm, conversation, and looks. And smell.

  They crossed the street. A house on the downhill side of the street had a deck that was at a dangerous angle. The railing was broken. The edge of the deck couldn’t hold weight, though no one had roped it off. The occupants must know to avoid it. Kate and Walter walked downhill, in the sun. They were within a block of her house, too late to change her mind. She hoped it was safe. Maybe Michael had gotten his shit together and taken the zombies to the hospital already. Or maybe the zombies would keep quiet long enough for her and Walter to shower and scrounge up some clothes and get out of there before he noticed that something was wrong. If they were quick, it might work.

  chapter ten

  Michael boosted Audrey over the wall, then climbed over. Cameron howled on the other side of the glass door, his palms against the glass. Audrey sat in a pile on the ground, giggling.

  “Come on, Audrey,” Michael said. “Please. We have to get you to the hospital.” He spoke slowly, hoping that helped.

  “Why?” she said.

  “Honey, you fell. Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”

  “Remember what?” She smiled, and reached her arms up. “Will you smoke me out? I’ve got a headache.”

  Michael pulled her to her feet. “I don’t have any,” he lied. He put her arm over his shoulder, and she kissed his cheek.

  “You need a shave,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about that.” He walked her to his car and bundled her into the passenger seat. He brushed her thigh accidentally, buckling her in. She didn’t seem to notice. Once she was safe, he glanced back at the deck. He could just see the top of the sliding glass door. It was closed. Still, if Kate’s friend could light a cigarette, Cameron could figure out a door if he really put his mind to it.

  He turned back to Audrey. He didn’t expect that she’d been bitten, but didn’t want to find out after the car was moving. There were no bites or scratches on her arms or her neck, which was a relief. She did have blood under her fingernails, but he hoped that didn’t matter. Blood didn’t seem to transmit the infection, if it was an infection. He and Kate both had gotten a little blood on themselves, and blood washes off. No, the infection must come only from being bitten, he reasoned, not from being exposed to blood. There had to be an entry point, or maybe the bug was in saliva. Cameron had gotten it from a bite; because he’d been bitten on the face, near the major arteries, he’d gotten sick fast. Kate’s friend must have been bitten at some point, too, just not as badly. He didn’t remember seeing any marks, but that also made sense, because if it was small he might not have seen it. Plus it had been dark inside Kate’s room. Never mind that the zombie girl had been naked. The memory of her, the way she moved and what she’d wanted to do, and how he’d wanted to do it too, was distracting.

  He had to get them help. They were long past the golden hour, during which the human body was supposed to be able to wait for medical attention, so long as you weren’t bleeding too much or in shock. That was from a book he’d read as a kid, about a plane crash at night in the backyard of this big country house. In all of the turmoil of triage and getting people into ambulances, there was one kid who’d been put on a couch under a blanket. Head injury, he remembered. She wasn’t as bad off as some of the other people, so she had to wait. Of course the kid was forgotten. Michael tried to tell himself that a few more hours wou
ldn’t matter to his friends, if that’s how long it took before he could get them medical attention. It wasn’t like they were getting any worse. Just as soon as he had cell phone coverage, he’d call for an ambulance to the house. Do what he should have done last night.

  Audrey busied herself poking at the radio, though the car wasn’t on. Michael closed her door and walked around to his side. He paused to look at the house, as if the cracks in the gray paint, or the arrangement of the pine tree’s branches, might spell out his next move. Then he started the car, and put it into gear. The radio came on.

  Audrey pushed a button and the radio started playing a song by Bone Thugs ’N Harmony.

  “Wait,” Michael said. He turned the radio to NPR. “You’ll receive a CD of this entire broadcast, with a donation of $75. You can even pay in low monthly installments, automatically deducted from your credit—” He changed the channel, trying to find the news.

  Audrey pushed Michael’s hand away, and changed the radio back.

  Michael pushed another button. Audrey changed it back. They continued like this until he’d heard all of the preset channels. If there had been a story about zombies, it was over now. He merged onto the freeway. Audrey rolled down her window. They drew even with a car that was playing the same song. There was a surreal moment of surround sound. Audrey nodded at the driver. He nodded back.

  “That means you can fall in love, when that happens,” she said. “If you’re listening to the same song. Two minds but with a single thought. Or maybe it’s ‘with but,’ I forget. Two minds, with butt.”

  “You’re such a romantic.”

  “No, really. You already know you have one thing in common.”

  The other car pulled ahead.

  “Will you take me home?” she asked. “I’m not feeling great.”

  “Sure,” he lied. “We just have to make one stop. Won’t take a Detroit minute.”

  “Last time you said that we had to watch a whole movie at your dealer’s house.”