Survivor Song

by Paul Tremblay

  She jabs the phone in Luis’s direction. He leans in and like a nervous witness on the stand says, “I am Luis Fernandez.”

  Natalie pivots and points the phone at Ramola, who obliges with her full name and address.

  Natalie hits a button on the screen, presumably shutting off the recording, and says, “I’ll haunt motherfuckers if it doesn’t happen.”

  Luis laughs, but then sheepishly hides it, pulling his bandanna over his mouth.

  Natalie points at Luis and her belly, and says, “If you say something about the movie Alien I’ll rip your face off.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but the rhythm is off, and sounds mournful, a lament. She adds, “Okay, if this is going to happen, let’s go. We gotta go.”

  Natalie sets off ahead of Ramola and Luis, who scramble to re-shoulder their bags. Natalie will not get very far ahead of them, but Ramola wants to shout, Wait! even though she knows she can’t.

  Nats

  Hey. I want to say this before they catch up and can hear me. It’s official. I’m infected. I know I was talking and acting like I knew I was all along, but I—I was really hoping these messages would work like a reverse jinx and I would be okay. But I’m not okay. So, yeah. Soon all that’ll be left of me are these recordings.

  No. You will be left of me. Am I saying that right? Do you know what I’m trying to say? My tongue is slow and I’m getting dizzy. That’s supposed to happen because I’m infected.

  I’m a part of you, so the recordings aren’t all that’s left of me. You have parts of me. Auntie Rams has parts of me with her. Make her tell you all those parts. Even the bad parts. I know I can be a lot.

  (male speaks, inaudible)

  Do you mind? I’m talking to my kid.

  That was Luis. He rides a bike that’s too small for him and makes jokes about zombies driving cars like those are the craziest things the universe has to offer—it’s not even close—and he jokes about this being a different and ridiculous timeline because why? Crazy, awful stuff happening. Pfft. Horrific shit has always happened, is always happening. And everywhere! And will happen! It won’t stop. There aren’t any other timelines, and this one has always been a horror. I’m not saying this to scare you, like the sun rising and falling each day shouldn’t scare you.

  I’m not going to be me for much longer. How am I supposed to wrap my head around that? What makes me me? Who or what will I be? Am I a different me with each passing second? I don’t feel different, but how can I tell when I am?

  I won’t be able to worry about what’s going to happen. That’s kind of a weird comfort. I wish I was going to be around to always be worrying about you.

  (silence)

  Auntie Rams says she’s going to take care of you. Be nice to her. The nicest. She’s—

  (silence)

  I know you can’t always be nice. No one can.

  And you’re going to think bad thoughts, appalling things, things that if you actually said or did people would think you’re a monster, but it’s normal. No one ever tells you that it’s okay to think hideous stuff and that everyone else does too. I used to cultivate elaborate daydreams about getting into arguments over the silliest, inconsequential bullshit with coworkers and friends, even Rams. Who does that, right? Who fantasizes about getting pissed off?

  “Is that Josh?”

  But when I’d start I couldn’t stop and I’d feed my anger like a bonfire until the scenarios got so big and out of control, burning everything down, then after when I finally would come out of the daydream I’d be all worked up and upset with myself for even thinking that way and I would be convinced I was a terrible no-good person and I’d slip into a self-hatred spiral, but that’s what people do, we prepare for the worst and think our worst but then we try our best.

  “What the fuck is he doing?”

  Everyone has the worst inside of them but some of us try to make something beautiful out of it anyway. I sound like an insane Hallmark card. Have I changed already? Am I not fully me anymore?

  (Luis and Ramola speaking at once, inaudible)

  Sassafras and lullabies.

  And love. The kind that’s so good it hurts and will always hurt. A great and most terrible love. I’m sorry.

  Bye.

  Rams

  “Do you mind? I’m talking to my kid.”

  Listening to Natalie again speaking to her unborn child, Ramola wants to send a message to her mum and dad, to tell them she is sorry, but for what she cannot say.

  Natalie’s verbal patterns are off, and her delivery, and syntax. It’s not every sentence, but there are missed connections, thudding halts, shifts, awkward restarts.

  “There aren’t any other timelines and this one has always been a horror. I’m not saying this to scare you, like the sun rising and falling each day shouldn’t scare you.”

  Ramola assumes Natalie implies the horrors of existence are as common and everyday as a sunrise and sunset, but “I’m not saying this to scare you” makes it difficult to fully parse the intended meaning or what tattered shred of hope or inspiration might be elicited.

  “Auntie Rams says she’s going to take care of you. Be nice to her. The nicest. She’s—”

  Under the weight of Natalie’s pause, Ramola looks away as though she has been caught in a lie. Her heavy eyes fall to the pavement briefly, then unmoored they float up and she stares at the lazy undulations of the surrounding foliage. She guiltily thinks, I’ll try, which does not equate to yes. “I’ll try” are words she studiously avoided as a medical student and resident because they granted permission to fail.

  Luis says, “Is that Josh?” His question is both rhetorical and incredulous.

  At the edge of their vision, emerging from a bend in the road, a person rides a bike toward them. It is clearly Josh in his black helmet and too tall for the bike, one end of the staff in his pack rising up over his head. He pedals furiously, standing up for better leverage.

  “What the fuck is he doing?” Luis veers his own bike left, away from Natalie, and he wobbles to a stop using his outstretched sneakers rubbing against the pavement as brakes.

  Ramola searches the road beyond Josh for an ambulance or a car, anything, hoping the teen is the head of a cavalry, that he’s a fabled dog leading rescuers to Timmy in the well.

  She and Luis simultaneously speak to, at, and over each other: “Where’s the ambulance?” and “Why is he riding by himself?” Neither one answers the other, nor do they dare acknowledge the implications of their questions.

  Natalie finishes recording and puts her phone back into her sweatshirt pocket. Ramola urges her to stop walking, to wait a moment, to hear what Josh has to report.

  Josh sprint-pedals until he’s with the group, skidding to a stop in front of Luis, their front tires almost touching. He dramatically hunches over the handlebars, head dropped, back rising and falling as he pants for air.

  Luis knocks hard on Josh’s helmet. “Hey, where’s the ambulance?”

  Between gasps, he manages, “I didn’t make it . . . all the way . . . to the clinic. How’d you get out here? Why aren’t you guys back—”

  Luis interrupts, “Wait. What do you mean you didn’t make it to the clinic?”

  “Guy. We are in the shit. The shit. Like, a half mile from here, maybe less, there’s a big group, at least ten, headed this way—”

  “I knew it. A fucking zombie herd.” Luis’s mouth drops open, a can-you-believe-it almost-grin. He rubs his hands together as though he can’t wait to see it.

  “Nah, guy. They’re not zombies. It’s worse. They’re like a militia or mob or something. Not the National Guard or police or anything official like that. Some of them are just weekend-warrior dads, you know, wearing khakis and beer bellies, but most had weapons and there were two ginormous dudes in head-to-toe army fatigues, faces painted, crossbows, scary-ass—”

  Luis interrupts. “I don’t get—”

  Ramola says, “Let him finish.”

  Josh continues. He tells them
the group didn’t see him coming and he hid behind some trees next to an old graveyard to watch what they were up to. There was a slow-rolling red pickup truck following behind the men on foot, and they fanned out and knocked on doors of the houses on both sides of the street. No one answered as far as he could tell.

  Ramola breaks in with, “Hold on. Did I hear you correctly? They have a pickup truck. Did you ask them if they could give Natalie a ride?”

  “Fuck no. When they got close to the graveyard I booked it outta there. Rando militia types are always way worse than zombies. I’ve already seen this movie a zillion times.”

  Natalie laughs, says, “Too young to live, too dumb to die.” Her laughs turn into coughs.

  “Bloody hell, you watch too many movies. This isn’t a movie!” Ramola shouts.

  Luis piles on. “Seriously? You didn’t talk to them, didn’t go to the clinic? You just came back here?”

  “I’m telling you, they’re bad news. When I was riding away they yelled after me and it wasn’t like, ‘Hey bro. What’s up? How can we help you?’ They angry-yelled at me. They were all like, ‘Stop right there!’” Josh gives a deep-voiced, mocking impersonation of male authority. “Let me translate that for you. It’s not hey-guy-we-want-to-help-speak. It’s give-us-your-supplies-and-maybe-we-won’t-wear-your-skin-speak.”

  Luis groans and says, “I knew I should’ve gone.”

  “Guy. I can’t believe you’re not with me on this.”

  Ramola says, “Both of you be quiet for a moment, please.” She spins herself in circles, her hands on top of her head, too tired, angry, scared to do anything more.

  Natalie mutters to herself and walks past the teens, tracking the yellow double lines. Her inefficient gait is deteriorating and is more painful to watch, a robot doomed to shake itself apart. Her previously upright posture is melting; left shoulder is slumped and not level with her right.

  Josh says, “Where’s she going? We gotta hide. Or up ahead, before they get to us, we might be able to take a left down Lincoln Street, head toward the center of town, get help there.”

  Ramola says, “No. We’re going to the clinic. There is no other option.”

  “Facts. Natalie has to get there, and, like, now,” Luis says to his friend, as though he’s sharing bad news.

  Ramola is about to suggest Luis bike ahead to ask the group for help and/or go on to the clinic if they decline, when she spies the metal pegs sticking out from the axles of their rear wheels. Earlier, when the teens suggested they hitch rides on their bikes, she hadn’t seriously considered it, given Natalie’s pregnancy. But that was before Natalie’s hydrophobic episode and her infection became inarguable. The clock moves in triple-time now. The pegs jut out perpendicularly from the axle, are essentially sections of pipe of a two-to-three-inch diameter, and are at least five inches long, certainly longer than their feet are wide. They would make adequate footholds. Standing astride the rear wheel while the bicycle is moving would be a fall risk for Natalie, obviously, but Ramola doesn’t want to risk sending Luis ahead and have him come back without any help, losing both time and shortened distance to the clinic in the process.

  Luis says, “I’ll go. I can convince them they have to help.”

  “Nah, bro. Bad. Bad.” Josh throws nervous looks over his shoulder at the road behind him.

  Ramola says, “We are all going.”

  Natalie stops walking and turns around.

  Ramola continues. “We’re all going so they can see Natalie and so I can do the talking. If Natalie and I stand on those rear pegs”—she points at Luis’s bike—“you’re confident you can remain balanced with our extra weight?”

  Without hesitation, Luis says, “Oh hell yeah.”

  Ramola says to Natalie, “If those men want to help us, give us a ride, great, but if not, we keep going to the clinic ourselves. No more waiting around.”

  Natalie nods, but her look is distracted, faraway.

  Josh says, “Trash idea. We need to—”

  Her fists clenched, Ramola turns on the teen and yells, “There’s no other idea! She has to get to the clinic now!”

  Given Josh is approximately twenty-five pounds heavier than Luis, they split up the total weight load for each bike. Natalie will ride with Luis, Ramola with Josh.

  Ramola stands behind Natalie, her arms out like a gymnast’s spotter, but Natalie doesn’t need help. Natalie puts her hands on Luis’s shoulders and steps up and onto the pegs with a surprising spryness and confidence, or, overconfidence, which Ramola fears is a result of the infection interfering with her brain’s ability to curb inhibition and assess risk. The rear tire sinks under the added weight, but doesn’t completely flatten. Ramola worries less about the tire’s integrity and Natalie’s feet slipping off than she does her ability to hold on with an injured left arm.

  Natalie’s belly rests against Luis’s back. She asks, “You sure about this, guy?”

  “I’ve had heavier on here.”

  “Ain’t you sweet? I won’t bite you in the neck until we get there.”

  “Stay leaned forward, I can take it.” The strain in Luis’s voice communicates the opposite. “Don’t step off until I stop, and one foot at a time.” He pushes the bike forward, grunting with each of the four lunging strides of his legs, working the bike up to a speed with which he can place his feet on the pedals. They wobble and shimmy from side to side for a heart-swallowing moment, but then straighten out and glide smoothly down Bay Road.

  Ramola jogs over to the rear of Josh’s bike, clamps onto his shoulders, and climbs onto the pegs. The step up is only about a foot off the ground but the elevated position already feels precarious and unstable. She says, “We need to catch up to them, but in the safest possible manner.”

  Josh doesn’t say anything and slowly pushes them forward. She feels him pouting and sulking beneath her hands. His listless affect is a full-body eye roll, his silence a no-one-ever-listens-to-me protest. She wants to scold him again—it felt good to do so earlier—perhaps teach him some choice British slang in the process. However, she reminds herself he is not an adult and he is within the age range of her patients. The displays of bravura do not fully mask the lost, frightened, and confused young man he clearly is.

  She leans forward, as far as she dares, and says, “Thank you for this, Josh.”

  Josh pumps his legs and accelerates them down the road. They gain on Luis and Natalie. Ramola’s unbuttoned coat billows open and the blast of cold wind waters her eyes. She presumes it feels like they are moving faster than they actually are given her unaccustomed perspective hovering above the rear tire of a bicycle. She suppresses the urge to request that he slow down.

  Josh says, “I still don’t get why we shouldn’t avoid those guys, take a different route, just in case. I mean, is she going to have the baby, like, right this second?”

  Ramola realizes Josh doesn’t know Natalie is infected. She tells him, plainly, and adds, “She doesn’t have much time.”

  Josh makes stuttering vowel sounds, eventually evolving into speech. “Ah, oh, uh, does Luis know? Is he in danger?” He pedals faster and for a moment, Ramola fears he’s aiming to smash into Luis and Natalie, a harebrained attempt to rescue his friend by toppling the pregnant zombie off the bike.

  Racing to get all the words out, she says, “He knows, he knows! And we weren’t keeping it from you. We didn’t know—none of us knew until Luis gave her water and she reacted. Natalie was bitten late this morning but we hoped she had been vaccinated in time.”

  Josh doesn’t respond. He pulls even with the others as they glide past the Borderland parking lot and the Lincoln Street/Allen Road intersection.

  Natalie towers over a determined Luis. Not a big kid to begin with, he’s scrunched in his seat as though being accordioned by Natalie pressing down on his shoulders. There doesn’t appear to be enough tire rubber and metal frame to hold them up. They’re a circus act in which a comically small bike will shed parts as a lead-up to a crowd-pl
easing crash and pratfall. Natalie holds her head tilted to the left, as though her neck is stiff and hurts. Ramola wants to call out to her, talk to her, but doesn’t want to distract her or break her concentration.

  Josh calls to Luis, “You good, bro?”

  “I’m the good.” He’s out of breath, but he continues pedaling. “Where’s your postapocalyptic crew? Witness me!” Both teens laugh. Natalie laughs too and repeats the “Witness me” line.

  Ramola says, “I’ve seen that one,” inordinately proud of herself, although encouraging more movie references or comparisons is not what she should be doing with this lot.

  After the brief outburst, the group goes silent. Beneath Ramola’s feet the rear tire spins and the blacktop blurs. Every bump and rut they pass over sends a jolt into her ankles and knees. She worries about the level of physical stress and strain Natalie must be experiencing.

  Beyond the state park and intersection, there are again homes dotting the wooded roadside. From Ramola’s vantage, it’s impossible to know if the homes are occupied, as there are no lights on and the windows are dark. Do the empty driveways mean cars are hidden inside garages? Did all these residents flee the area days ago, ahead of the statewide quarantine? Now that they are about a mile from the clinic, if they are to come across a house showing clear signs of occupation, is it worth the added time and chance to knock on the door?

  Josh asks if they can turn left ahead; he knows a way to bypass a big section of Bay Road. The group answers with a resounding no.

  Luis asks, “Hey, where are all the big scary men?”

  Josh’s “Farther down” might as well be a “Fuck you.”