I rocked from side to side, cackling into my elbow. My torso tingled and my ears bounced against the concrete. She knelt beside me.
“Ophelia?”
I tried to stop. I panted. I should stop. She brushed my fringes from my clammy forehead.
“Ophelia, are you okay?”
“We did it. We did it, Swan. We attacked an Auction. We didn’t die. Nothing went wrong! Nobody died! We did it!”
“Ha ha! You’re right! We did it!”
She danced another lap around the alley.
“We did it! We did it! We did it! We did it!” she chanted.
Swan snatched my wrist and held it up like a champion, showing us to the unwatching world – grand and victorious with nobody to see, everyone tending our fires. We had defeated everything laid in our paths, a zombie and a little girl, beaming from grey-green cheek to strawberry-blonde curl. I howled. Sirens answered me, but Swan fell quiet. Her hand on my wrist went slack. She stumbled backwards, dabbing at an open cut on her palm, where her poker had rubbed away her fair skin into popped, open blisters and cracks. My smile fell.
“It … it tingles,” she stuttered, “It tingles.”
She looked at the open cut on her hand and then down at me through the tears forming in her eyes. She cringed away from my clotting, uncovered arms, and shuddered.
“I got it in my cut. It tingles.”
“Swan,” I got to my feet, “I told you not to touch … Oh … No … No. I'm so sorry. Oh, no. … No, no no. I am so sorry. I should never have … I'm so sorry. ... Oh, no. … Swan. … No, not you.”
I tried to focus my eyes on her turned back. She swayed now instead of celebrating. I crept up behind her to see what I had done. To see what I could do. Maybe she wasn’t really Infected. Maybe I hadn’t really killed her. Maybe she was just light-headed.
She let me pry her fingers away from her wound. I peered into the pink, pulpy palm. Such small cuts. How could such a small mistake let in such a big hurt? Tonight? But it had finally happened. I hadn’t saved her. I had killed her. I had killed Swan.
She half sat, half fell to the concrete. I caught her and then thought better of it, pulling away. She grabbed my arms and held me tightly.
“It’s okay,” she said, “I have it now. You can’t give it to me again. Don't worry so much, Ophelia.”
“Swan, Swan. Oh, Swan. I am so sorry,” I brushed a red curl out of her eyes, “I knew you shouldn’t touch me. I’m so sorry. I'm so sorry. We should have run. I should have run. But I couldn’t leave you. I wanted to take care of you.”
She labored to breathe as a small river of grey tears poured from the corner of her eyes. I should have let her eat more over the last few weeks; she was so small, the Infection was taking her quickly. She was already burning up and sweating and shaking.
“I’m so sorry,” I mouthed, burying my face in her rags, still rocking.
“Maybe you can keep me like that other thing you have living in your apartment.”
“I … I …” I stuttered.
“Aw. Don’t worry. If you try to ditch me, I’ll just follow you home again,” she tried to giggle and then coughed, “Like I did the first time.”
“Swan, Swan,” I rocked her gently, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I’ll understand if you can’t keep me,” she rattled and clotting spittle splattered her freckled chin.
“Of course I’ll keep you. Of course I’ll keep you,” I checked her pulse, “Maybe you’re Immune anyway. Maybe you’ll be like me. Let’s just wait and see.”
“Ha. Heh. Shhhure. I’m … I’m going to miss you,” she said an her head lolled off to the side.
“You won’t miss me. You’ll wake right back up. You hear me? Immune, like me.”
“It all tingles. My stomach tingles. I Love You.”
She fainted against my lap.
“I Love You, too.”
I didn’t let her limp, battered knuckles hit the cement. I held onto her hands. I stroked her damp hair away from her mouth. I put two fingers on the side of her soft, clammy neck. Her heartbeat slowed. It was slow, too slow, and then it stopped. I couldn’t feel any more movement, not even seizures. I leaned into her belly, pushing my face into it, willing her blood to return to normal, or to stay still, just not to reverse. I willed her to be like me. I inhaled deeply, forcing myself to memorize her salty, tea-soaked scent.
She stirred.
“Please, please,” I turned my waxy, grey face up to the obscured, yellow stars, “Please, please, please.”
She grabbed a fistful of my hair and brought my head to her mouth. She took a bite. I felt my scalp tingle where it ripped away, dripping more black blood onto her. She was not Immune. She was not like me. I had killed her.
I gently but firmly held her hands down to her sides, careful of her skin that would never heal again. Her poor, boney hands – I would have to bandage them, over and over again, forever, every time she got them dirty. I would keep her as she had asked. She couldn’t hurt me. How would I hurt her more? Could I ever take care of anyone?
I tried to pull her onto my lap like I would Juliet, but she was too big. No matter how I held her, she turned and gnawed on my collar or shoulder. Her left arm snapped slightly under the pressure of my restraining hug. She twisted her hips into my belly and lunged for my neck, teeth gnashing behind her purple-blue lips.
Even emaciated she was too big to keep indoors, but I had no tool shed, no chicken wire or yard to make her a fence. She needed a tower. A roof. I thought of our roof, the upper floors of the building overrun with Squatters and their rain-collection troughs that they defended with spiked clubs. Swan needed an empty, quiet roof – a place that I could tend to daily, with a sentry who would keep others away.
The Clinic. The floors above the Clinic were almost always empty. So few Squatters. Almost everyone was suspicious of the Doctors who couldn’t stop the plague and wouldn’t treat the poor’s rotten teeth. Only the most desperate Infected Squatter would try the floors above the distrusted Clinic, and I hadn't noticed many freshly Infected since I'd been watching Buying and Selling Dirtbags instead.
I could give Swan to Jim. I could apologize for stealing supplies. Let him smile at me and makes jokes about Rangers who trip over their own belts while he smashed her head in like I had taught him. Thank him for the book. Let him do the right thing and take care of Swan. He hadn't had any real zombies to practice on in a while. I could let him give Swan a final peace and then hug me and tell me that everything was ok, until I dripped on him and made him sick, too, while breaking my promise to Swan, before Jim could come up with a Cure.
I told Swan that I would keep her. And I had told Jim that it isn't Safe to keep zombies after they turn. I taught that: no keeping zombies. It's not Safe, except to me. Not until there is a Cure. And if I left him alone and uninfected, he could make us all that Cure.
I would have to keep Swan and my sorrow to myself. I would hide her on the vacant roof of the Clinic, but not tell Jim, whom I had already robbed and whom I needed busy with Science. I would lock everybody else out of her isolated, almost protected building. Another task for a Big Sister.
“I Love You, too,” I told her and dragged her towards the main street to the Clinic, “Come on, Swan. I don’t want to go either, but we can’t stay here.”
I tugged her behind me by twisting her skirt into a harnessed lead, while she grappled for my kneecaps with wiggling fingers. We approached the Clinic from the side opposite the delivery door, with the dank, dull air muffling our arrival. We were silent relative to the hiss of the steam grates and the occasional rumble of an obliviously passing truck, but I wished that Jim would see us avoiding him. I wanted him to forgive me for robbery, offer us a good home, to not judge me for keeping her, to take her into the lab to fix her with a Cure, to watch over her while I sat and wept into his arms. But I couldn’t cry onto his fragile skin, or he would die too and the Cure would never be finished. Or he would kill Swan
even after I admitted that love and fate was more important than my Training or his.
Swan gnawed on my scalp while I piggybacked her up the fire escape, our fluffy orange bobs mingling in our black blood twisted embrace. I didn’t have to tell her to hold on tight, she braced me to her mouth like I was fresh opossum steak.
“Ha ha, I know you haven’t had much to eat, but geeze take it easy. No need to swallow me all at once. I’ll come to see you every night. You’re lucky I can still heal.”
The floors above the Clinic were as abandoned as I had hoped. The only other resident Squatters had changed into zombies days earlier. Poor things, they had no one to Love them and lock them up safe until the Cure was done. Nobody to give them peace by crushing their skulls. Swan cavorted with them until they lay motionless on the floor, smashed by my effortless, numb motions. I couldn’t let all these things galavant around until the Cure was ready.
“It’d be nice if I could give you a roof over your head, but it’d be too hard to block off a whole floor for you, and you’re big enough that you could use some wide open spaces and fresh air,” I told Swan.
She followed me swiftly up the last set of stairs. She had no major injuries to impair her speed or mobility yet. Her gait was still perfect and not hindered by the permanent injuries that she would collect until she could be Cured, only the few small cuts on her hands and feet. Just blisters really, but they needed bandages to hide the peels that would never re-smooth. Not until the Cure. Since she wasn’t Immune. No part Human anymore. That was left to me.
I ripped off the bottom third of my dress, wrapping the strip around her palms and tying a small knot while she kept it aloft, all five fingers pointing at my throat.
“Don’t worry, nothing will hurt anymore. It will only tingle.”
I lugged a large, mildewing water barrel over near the door, so that she could sip from it when she got thirsty. I splashed my fingers on the surface until she found it and plunged her entire head into the murky tub. She gulped and gulped until water trickled down her legs, and then she whipped her soggy head backwards, roared and thundered away after a rat that was trying to steal eggs from a pigeon’s nest. Swan would have loved those eggs, but now she only chased after the raw guts that ran away from her.
The water in her barrel was tasty and refreshing in my belly, but as soon as I locked the door between her and I, with her on the other side, stuck on the roof, I bent over my knees and wretched, vomiting black soup down the staircase in front of me. It poured out of me as fast as I had swallowed it down. I tried to catch it in my cupped palms and shovel it back inside of me – even mildewed water was precious – but every time I heard Swan roaming across the rooftop, green and scarred, it spurted back out of my nostrils, unwilling to stay in my undeserving body. I flopped on my belly, pressed against the uneven floor, purging the contents of my stomach with sorrow. I relaxed my fists against the already broken boards.
Hearing my sighs, Swan banged back at me on the roof door to come out and follow me home. I wiped my lips and stood up out of my puddles.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. You have to stay here. I’ll be back to see you tomorrow night.”
She banged again in protest.
“Don’t do that, you’ll hurt your hands. I’ll bring you better bandages tomorrow. Don’t bang. Your poor hands. Your poor hands. I'll be back.”
I trailed my fingers down my side of the door, feeling the full impact of her punches. I backed away down the stairs, through the rivers of black water that I had set loose. I tried to vomit some more, but I was already empty.
Somewhere in the city were girls who were still surprised not to be Wives. Probably. Unless the Carl in the top hat really ran a brothel. But no, they had a new life laid before them, thanks to Swan who had given hers up. She had given them a second chance, and me endless chances. I had taken all of hers away.
I passed by a cubbyhole full of weasel babies on my way home and did not stop to make them into a dinner for Swan. She didn’t need food anymore. I stumbled numbly to her apartment door. She didn’t need her locks anymore, and I didn’t want anybody else to hole up in there, so I chopped through the wood instead. My ax was too heavy in my hands. I let it go and sat down in the middle of her floor. I opened my eyes only after my feet started to tingle from being folded too tightly beneath me, my sticky jaw popping as I turned my head, gouged where Swan had bitten me. But I would heal.
Always a little messy, she hadn’t bothered to make her nest of blankets any neater than standing up out of them the last time she had woken up. There were three empty tea mugs near her ratty pillow. Scraps of graphite-covered paper drifted below her un-curtained window. Her pencil rolled precariously near an old air grate. Two mismatched shoes of the same size dangled by their laces from a broken hinge on a kitchen cabinet. There was an unopened can of beans on the counter. The bathtub faucet dripped into the bucket that she used to flush her toilet. A brisk draft toyed with her squeaky, never-closed closet door.
The sun peeked in over her windowsill and it was time for me to go to bed. I stood, put her pencil in my pocket, kissed her bookshelf goodbye, and patted it three times for each Book that I left exactly where she had put it. I left her blankets rumpled on the floor, still looking ready to receive her, but I draped the clothes from her closet over my shoulder and filled up my arms. I took them to my own closet, threw them down on my ratty bed, and curled up under the leftover weight of her rainbow. I had taken care of nothing.
Juliet was jealous of all of the work that I had to do for Swan. The days were sweaty and humid, but every time I opened the curtains and window to let some fresh air in, Juliet tried to throw herself over the sill. Every time I put a load of laundry into the bathtub she launched herself at the agitator rocks that I threw in to bang the dirt from the soiled fabrics. When I sat by the window sewing, hemming the holes that we had all put into our clothes, Juliet refused to chew on her old rag toy, instead favoring every garment that I tried to patch.
I washed out the pots and pans that we used for water, but Juliet wouldn’t drink out of the one that I put on the floor for her, even though it was full of cool, fresh water. She demanded the empty, drying ones that were out of her reach on the counter, the ones that I was reserving for Swan.
“Oh, come on, Juliet.”
I fashioned her a new chew toy to keep her out of my already clawed hair. I tied some socks – too ruined for even arm warmers – into the shape of a baby doll and suspended it from the ceiling by a long strand of melted bungees that I joined over a candle. I let her have at it. She dove after the swinging decoy until she was sweating and seeping all over the floor. I didn’t stop her from exerting herself. It didn’t matter if she stained or tore the outfit that she was wearing – we had plenty of water and had just inherited a whole new wardrobe from Swan.
It took forever for the clothes to dry in the moist Summer air, draped over doorknobs and the back of the toilet and the curtain rods and stove door. A cornucopia of sweaters. It had rained socks and pants. I had hated all of Mom’s stitching lessons, but now that I had two Little Ones to look after, I was glad to know how to fix everything instead of having to steal new ones.
Swan was a little smaller than me, but her pants worked as my capris, and her long sleeves were perfect as three-quarter sleeves to hide some of my green skin. Her clothes were too big for Juliet, but I liked to dress Juliet in oversized pants and shirts that I could tie over her hands and feet to protect them from the rough floor. Aside from the few items I saved for Juliet and I, I packed up a bundle of clothes for Swan herself and stowed them with The Little Engine that Could in a clean, empty pot that I was taking to the Clinic roof.
“Behave yourself until I get back.”
I patted Juliet on the head and hugged her again when she didn’t want to let me go, but she was going to have to accept that I had another person to look out for now.
“You need to share me with Swan, just like she is sharing her clothes with you.
”
The door was always locked and barricaded. I assumed that a miserable drunk like Uncle Donnie couldn’t climb a fire escape, even if he had finally found me.
I didn’t speak to Jim, but I spied on him sometimes on my way to the Clinic roof. He often sat on delivered boxes with his thermos, for an hour or two, early in the night, reading Books or scribbling on papers. His crutch was within reach, but he hadn’t bothered to re-tape the razor blades that were drooping to one side. He occasionally scratched his nose and looked around, but I never let him see me. I just blew him one apology kiss per night and then paced to the stairs on the other side of his building.
The stairs up to the roof were stuffy and stale, waves of rotten stench rippling through the tight air. Each step creaked with abandon and threatened to burst with swollen decay. I opened all of the windows as I climbed, letting the fumes seep into the night. I killed a dehydrated, sweat-slippery zombie on the third floor, where he had set up a little camp before he had Changed sometime in the last day. I was glad that it couldn’t feel my grief as I piled it into a heap in the very building where the Cure was probably already being tested, but it gave me comfort to practice an old chore and to grant peace to at least one sad monster.
Swan stumbled over to me when I unbarred her roof door. She was Warm enough to run, but she hadn’t had any water since I had left her, having forgotten where her water barrel was, so she wobbled on her dehydrated feet. I stooped to fill her new water pot. When she heard the splashes, she let go of my shins and stuck her head into the shining bowl, sucking the liquid through her mouth and nose. She would have taken the water through her ears and eyes too if they would have allowed it. She only raised her head when the pot needed refilling.
I obliged, sloshing more water from the barrel, but it was almost empty. I hoped that it would rain soon, to break the heat and fill her containers. Grey sweat dripped silently out of our pores while Swan gnashed at the bundle in my hand.
Ophelia Immune: A Novel Page 20
