“You know that’s not it, Jamie. I’m thinking of the greater good. Think about the open wounds and the blood and guts.”
“So? Half the people you meet on the street are in some state of decay these days. So what? Just because someone is missing a few fingers, you’re going to say they can’t come in here anymore?”
She was right about it being commonplace: you can’t turn around anymore without tripping over a zombie part lying on the sidewalk, an abandoned leg, a shed arm, fingertip litter. A lot of fingertips. The occasional head. Okay, the heads are different. Officially, headhunting’s been banned, but it still happens occasionally, even though attacks against zombies are supposedly punishable under the hate crimes law.
“It’s not sanitary,” I grumbled. “It’s…unsafe.”
“It’s never been shown that you can catch the disease by swimming in the same water, Kevin. It has to be intimate contact, you know that. There has to be an exchange of bodily fluid. Biting, scratching, tainted blood transfusions.”
“Sex,” I added. “Don’t forget sex. Or consuming tainted flesh.”
She gave me a dirty look. “What I mean is there’s nothing to worry about, as long as they get their shots, they’re practically harmless. And the chlorine takes care of the rest.”
“Practically doesn’t mean completely.”
I knew the Treatment worked remarkably well. It was developed by this guy in Texas shortly after the Outbreak, which was a good thing, otherwise the Seven Days of Slaughter would’ve been more like the Seven Months of Slaughter and none of us would be standing here. Alive, anyway. The Treatment’s not a cure, just a mixture of serotonin and opiates that help quell the zombies’ feeding urges. And it isn’t foolproof. Even if a zombie is properly treated, they sometimes still do attack for some unknown reason. But what people sometimes forget is that it doesn’t get rid of the disease-causing agent. After Treatment, zombies may no longer want to eat your brains, but they’re still contagious.
“Nobody’s going to catch the disease by swallowing water the zombies have been swimming or bathing in,” she declared. “Or by getting it in your eyes.”
She knew those fears were front and center in my mind. They were why I pretty much refused to go in the water anymore. Not that there’s any need to, since zombies can’t drown. Good for them, because there’s any way in hell I’d ever do CPR on one if they could. Whenever one gets stuck on the bottom of the pool, I just use the hook and drag them out and dump them on the cement. They sort of lie there for a few minutes flopping around, not even embarrassed or thankful. Then they get up and wander off again.
The zombette in the Ronnie Marx had finally chosen a chaise lounge and was bent over it smoothing out her towel. Her g-string—not that it had covered much terrain before—had completely worked itself underground by now. I shuddered and tried to imagine something else. Anything that would erase the image of the ‘bette’s bare, pale green ass from my mind. Heck, I’d even settle for an image of me and Gwen kissing.
Actually, scratch that. Some things are just too horrid to contemplate.
“I still don’t understand how can they say chlorine kills the disease when they don’t even know what causes it.”
Jamie turned her back on me. She does that when she knows I’m right.
“Oh, come on!”
Then, inexplicably, she began removing her t-shirt. At first, I was, like, cool, but then I was just confused.
“What are you doing? Uh, Jamie?”
Underneath, she was wearing her usual boring blue one-piece that showed absolutely nothing. It didn’t stop me from imagining her in the Ronnie Marx instead.
“So, you need proof?” she said.
“Proof of what?” I asked, still enjoying the image in my head. But then I suddenly realized what she was up to. She wasn’t flirting with me. Or distracting me. Or even arguing with me. She intended to prove me wrong, even if it ultimately proved I was right.
“Don’t do it, J,” I cried, my voice cracking. “Don’t go in the water! They haven’t treated—”
But she quickly stepped out of her shorts, her eyes flashing with anger. Then, with a quick, graceful spin, she turned on her toes and dove into the pool.
“—the water yet this morning.”
I watched helplessly as she made her way across to the other side, resting for a moment beneath the spot where the ‘bette had staked out her territory.
“Get out of there,” I called. “And don’t get so close to…to them.”
She dunked her head underwater and came up with a mouthful, which she proceeded to spit out in a long lazy arc. Then she took another and swished it around.
“Please,” I begged her. I could feel my chest constricting in horror. “Come out. I’m sorry, Jamie.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement where the ‘bette had been sitting. I imagined the zombies all of a sudden going after Jamie, as if their treatment had all worn off at the same time. But when I blinked, none of them had gotten up. Instead, my eyes were greeted by a different, almost equally horrifying scene.
The zombette was busily squirting sunscreen from a bright pink bottle and slopping it messily over her arms. The white cream made her skin look even paler than its natural gray-green. She’d already done her chest and legs. Her minimally-covered breasts glistened like peeled avocados in the bright sunlight. I wanted to puke.
Jamie leisurely pushed off the wall and swam back to my side of the pool. I was practically trembling with anger and terror by then.
She pulled herself out of the water and snatched her towel from my hands.
“They’re not the monsters you think they are, Kevin,” she said with finality.
I felt my face grow even redder. I hated what she’d just done, jumped in the water like that. Took it into her mouth. And yet I still wanted desperately to kiss those lips! It hurt that she’d so recklessly taunted me, risking her own health to make a point. Though, for the life of me, I had no clue what that point could be.
I was holding the red foam lifesaving device, the one the lifeguards jokingly referred to as the Suppository. When she reached for it, I wrenched it out of her grasp and, with a flick of my wrist, threw it over her head and into the middle of the pool. “Maybe your new buddy over there will get it for you,” I shouted.
“Err!” I heard her yell. She sputtered angrily for a moment before adding, “You Velascos are all alike: stubborn as hell!”
I barely even heard her as I stomped off. I was angry at myself and her. But most of all I was angry at Gwen for being so right: zombies were Jamie’s type.
How the hell could I compete against that?
† † †
Jamie was off the next day, which was a good thing. I was still fuming. I figured she had to be too.
I spent most of the morning thinking things over, remembering old times, wondering what had changed between us. When they had changed.
We’d been best friends for, like, forever. Had been ever since we were preschoolers digging in the sandbox at Little Geniuses Academy, fighting over who got to have the castle-shaped bucket and the big red shovel. Our first and last argument, at least until the Undead came along and ruined everything. It’s strange to watch the video of those two little innocent kids playing, arguing, talking in a language neither of us remembers anymore. Jamie pouring sand over my head. Me…
Never mind.
I’m still not exactly sure what my mother was thinking when she posted the video on YouTube a couple years ago. Fortunately, there were a lot of other things going on in the world at the time that The Merry Misadventures of Naked Kevin never went viral, things like war in the Middle East and global warming and dead people coming back to life.
And just to address any rumors that may still be circulating, I was three at the time. And it wasn’t as warm that day as you might think.
Also, I’d just finished drinking a very large juice box, so my bladder was full.
Our famil
ies were next door neighbors. As the years passed we all grew pretty tight with each other: I called her parents Mr. and Mrs. D and she called mine Sarah and Ron. She was like that.
Actually, that’s not exactly true. Jamie and Gwen were never as tight as the rest of us. In fact, tended to avoid one another like the plague. Sort of like Gwen and I do now, which makes me realize there’s a common denominator in this equation. Sometimes I wonder if my real twin sister was swapped out at birth and we got the spawn of Satan in exchange.
Anyway, our houses were practically community property in those days. I’d probably spent as many nights sleeping over in Jamie’s bedroom as she had in mine. The sleepovers stopped a few years ago, though, which is when somebody (namely, her father) suddenly realized we were soon to become hormone-riddled teenagers who couldn’t be trusted to be left alone with each other. If I remember it correctly, it was also right around the time someone else (namely, my father) thought it would be a good idea to sneak a package of condoms into my dresser drawer with a note that said, “Just in case.”
Like, just in case what? And did I really need a twelve-pack? Talk about being optimistic. But worst of all was the image I got of my father standing in the condom aisle trying to decide which size to get for me.
There are just some things you don’t ever want your parents thinking too much about.
The next day, I buried the entire box in the bottom of the trashcan and tried to erase the memory completely from my mind. Oh, if it was only that simple.
Within days, people in the hallway at school were calling me Justin. Or Señor Case. At first, I was, like, what the hell? My name’s not Justin. And, who’s Señor Case? Then I realized that somebody (namely, the Gwench) had blabbed about the condoms on her blog.
So, yeah, definitely Satan spawn.
Luckily, Jamie thought the whole internet thing was cute. The ban on sleepovers, on the other hand, she said was an outrageous insult to our civil rights. Maybe it was because we’d just finished a section on the nineteen-sixties in Classical American History class, or maybe she was always destined to become a civil rights champion, I don’t know. It certainly explains a few things about the way she is now. In any case, to show our contempt for the new rules, we snuck out and held a sleep-in on the back lawn. Joined sleeping bags, shared pillow. That’s how tight we were.
Nothing happened between us that night, of course. We slept like babies (this was before my sex drive kicked in, and presumably hers, too). I understand Mr. and Mrs. D were nervous wrecks when they found out where we’d been and grounded Jamie for a month, which she ignored.
We all laugh about it now.
I pushed the memories away from me and tried to blank my mind by focusing on the patterns reflecting off the surface of the pool as the sun inched its way across the sky. After what seemed like forever, my shift finally ended.
My relief on the schedule was this dunderhead named Roy Delaney. I didn’t like him. Besides the fact that he was about as bright as an eight-watt CFL, he had no personality whatsoever. His only interest seemed to be baking in the sun, which made him seem all the more like a zom himself. In fact, that’s part of what annoyed me about the guy: he had no strong opinions about anything, including the Undead. He couldn’t give a crap if they came to the pool or not. He didn’t care if they kept away the warm bloods. He was happy as long as he could sit and get his tan.
It didn’t help that he also happened to look a lot like the dude on Gwen’s stupid Harlequin romance novels and actually looked good in a Speedo. Not that I was checking him out or anything, just saying.
I was watching the same ‘bette from yesterday, still trying to figure out who she was, when Roy tapped me on the shin to let me know he was there. I didn’t like him touching me, so I ignored him. The zombie was wearing a silver lamé bikini, the kind a guy would have wet dreams over if it was on a warm blood. It covered a little more than yesterday, thankfully, but not enough, and it really clashed with the tinge of her skin. Roy tapped me again, which only worsened my already bad mood.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him turn and follow my gaze out across the pool. I doubted he was trying to figure out what I was looking at. It was probably one of those reflexive things, a sort of primal survival group instinct like you see prairie dogs do on those nature programs. One member turns at the first sign of danger and the rest all follow suit. I briefly wondered what would happen if I started howling an alarm in monkey language. Would he start it too? I could definitely see him hopping around, dragging his knuckles and ooh-oohing. Unfortunately, the image made me snort.
“What?” he asked.
“They must go through gallons of the stuff,” I said, trying to hide my tears of laughter with my towel.
“Huh?”
He was a master of monosyllabic repartee.
“Them,” I said, gesturing irritably. The ‘bette had pulled a huge bottle of Banana Boat out of her bag and seemed to be studying it. I wondered if the brain synapses that had held the particular memory of how to open snap lids was still intact in her mind somewhere. It was funny to watch them sometimes, the random memories they seem to have and act upon, like the whole bikini strap thing yesterday. Such quirks don’t last long, though. Soon after turning, the neurons start dissolving into jelly. After a few weeks, there’s not much left and they become full-fledged mumbling, stumbling zombies.
“Gallons of what?”
“Sunscreen. They sure slather it on, don’t they?”
Roy grunted. “Never gave it much thought before.”
“Really,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “You always struck me as the cerebral type.”
His shoulders visibly stiffened, but he didn’t say anything. I figured I’d better not push it, especially considering he’d never actually done anything to make me hate him. Except breathe.
“She’s new,” I said, trying to be a little more amiable. He didn’t really deserve my anger, not when it was Jamie I was angry with. “Yesterday was her first day.”
“Who?”
There were about a dozen zoms spread out on the lounges, looking like some kind of cheap Halloween night haunted house, all in varying states of decay. Notably, all were in much more acceptable attire than the ‘bette.
I pointed. “The one in the Ronnie Marx two-piece. The curvy one.”
I could feel Roy looking at me, but I ignored him. Finally, he said, “That’s Gabrielle McNichols. I heard she turned a few weeks ago.” He looked away, scratching his armpit disinterestedly.
“Wait. Gabby McNichols? The music teacher? How—What happened?”
Another shrug. “Her husband turned about a month before. Heart attack. She let him bite her so they could be together forever.”
“That’s totally whacked.”
He shrugged.
“Wait, she was married? I didn’t know she was married.”
He nodded. “You have a thing for her or something?”
“No! I just—When she was at school, we always just called her Miss McNichols is all.”
“Because the way you’ve been watching her—”
“I’m not watching her!”
“Whatever. Listen, you coming down anytime soon?”
“Right. Sorry.” I hurried down the chair and gathered up my stuff.
“She’s hot,” he said from the chair.
“Who?” I looked around, thinking an actual warm blood had wandered in.
“The zom you were talking about. Gabrielle.”
“Oh.” I nodded as I zipped up my bag. “I guess. A little old for my taste, but—”
I didn’t have to look up to know he was staring holes at the top of my head.
“I meant,” he slowly explained, “that she looks like she’s getting ready to go in for a swim. To cool off.”
I heard the splash behind me as I hurried away. The last thing I needed was for word to get around that I had a thing for zombies. Okay, admittedly, Gabby was still hot, in a creepy sort of way.
<
br /> But there was no way in hell I could ever actually want to be with a zom.
† † †
Gabby McNichols. I mulled her name over and over again in my head as I walked home. What a freaking blast from the past.
I totally had had a thing for her years back. It wasn’t just me. All the boys in junior high did. She’d started teaching when I was a freshman and it seemed like there was a sudden influx of boys all interested in taking private piano lessons. I can still remember guys going around the halls bragging she told them they had ‘magical fingers.’
She’d been mysteriously fired the next year.
It felt really weird knowing someone who’d died and come back like that. I mean, I didn’t really know Gabby, but still…
I wondered what it had been like, to die. To come back.
I wondered what it must be like now for her and her husband, both zombies, forever together. Do they, you know…
Do it?
And how much do you have to be into a person get to that point where you say, I can’t go on without you, so bite me and we can be together forever?
I threw my bag on the floor of the living room when I got home and plunked my feet up on the coffee table, letting out a huge exhale of fatigue. I was sweating and my throat was parched. After a few minutes, I realized it was warmer in the house than it should have been. Somebody had turned off the AC.
I got up to bump it on. The thermostat was in the hallway. Through the doorway at the other end, I could see Gwen standing at the kitchen sink getting a glass of water. I knew it couldn’t have been her messing with the thermostat, since she’s like the Ice Queen and insists that we keep the temperature at a constant four degrees above absolute zero. So why would she allow it to get so warm in here?
The thermometer said it was a balmy seventy five. I nudged it back down to sixty-eight.
Gwen turned away from me and disappeared from view without seeing me.
“Take this,” I heard her say. “It’ll take the edge off.” There was a mumbled reply, something I couldn’t hear from someone I couldn’t see, and it was too quiet for me to recognize the voice. Then, Gwen again: “No, nothing that strong, just Tylenol.”
Insomnia: Paranormal Tales, Science Fiction, & Horror Page 10
