Текст книги "Warm Bodies"

Автор книги: Isaac Marion

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

I nod. ‘We’re… fixing things.’

‘But how ?’

‘Don’t know. But we have to… do more of it. Out there… where M is. “Outside”.’

Her excitement cools, hardens. ‘So we have to leave.’

I nod.

‘Both of us?’

‘Both,’ M’s voice crackles in the earpiece like an eaves-dropping mother. ‘Julie… part of it.’

She eyes me dubiously. ‘You want me . Skinny little human girl. Out there in the wild, running with a pack of zombies?’

I nod.

‘Do you grasp how insane that is?’

I nod.

She is silent for a moment, looking at the floor. ‘Do you really think you can keep me safe?’ she asks me. ‘Out there, with them?’

My incurable honesty makes me hesitate, and Julie frowns.

‘Yes,’ M answers for me, exasperated. ‘He can. And I’ll… help.’

I nod quickly. ‘M will help. The others… will help. Besides,’ I add with a faint smile, ‘you can… keep yourself safe.’

She shrugs nonchalantly. ‘I know. I just wanted to see what you’d say.’

‘So you’ll… ?’

‘I’ll go with you.’

‘You’re… sure?’

Her eyes are distant and hard. ‘I had to bury my mom’s empty dress. I’ve been waiting for this a long time.’

I nod. I take a deep breath.

‘The only problem with your plan,’ she continues, ‘is that you seem to be forgetting you ate someone last night, and this place is going to stay clamped shut until they find and kill you.’

‘Should we… attack?’ M says. ‘Get you… out?’

I put the phone back to my ear, gripping the receiver hard. ‘No,’ I tell him.

‘Have… army. Where’s… battle?’

‘Don’t know. Not here. These are… people.’

‘Well?’

I look at Julie. She looks at the ground and rubs her forehead.

‘Just wait,’ I tell M.

‘Wait?’

‘A little longer. We’ll… figure it out.’

‘Before… they kill you?’

‘Hopefully.’

A long, dubious silence. Then: ‘Hurry up.’

Julie and I stay up for the rest of the night. In our rain-wet clothes we sit on the floor in the cold living room and don’t say a word. Eventually my eyes sag shut, and in this strange calm, in what may be my last few hours on Earth, my mind creates a dream for me. Crisp and clear, alive with colour, unfolding like a time-lapse rose in the sparkling darkness.

In this dream, my dream, I am floating down a river on my housejet’s severed tail fin. I am lying on my back under the blue midnight, watching the stars drift by above me. The river is uncharted, even in this age of maps and satellites, and I have no idea where it leads. The air is still. The night is warm. I’ve brought only two provisions: a box of pad thai and Perry’s book. Thick. Ancient. Bound in leather. I open it to the middle. An unfinished sentence in some language I’ve never seen, and beyond it, nothing. An epic tome of empty pages, blank white and waiting. I shut the book and lay my head down on the cool steel. The pad thai tickles my nose, sweet and spicy and strong. I feel the river widening, gaining force.

I hear the waterfall.

‘R.’

My eyes open and I sit up. Julie is cross-legged next to me, watching me with grim amusement.

‘Having some nice dreams?’

‘Not… sure,’ I mumble, rubbing my eyes.

‘Did you happen to dream up any solutions to our little problem?’

I shake my head.

‘Yeah, me neither.’ She glances at the wall clock and bunches her lips ruefully. ‘I’m supposed to be at the community centre in a few hours to do story time. David and Marie are going to cry when I don’t show up.’

David and Marie . I repeat the names in my head, savouring their contours. I would let Trina eat my whole leg for the chance to see those kids again. To hear a few more clumsy syllables tumble from their mouths before I die. ‘What are… you reading them?’

She looks out of the window at the city, its every crack and flaw brought into sharp relief by the blinding white light. ‘I’ve been trying to get them into the Redwall books. I figured all those songs and feasts and courageous warrior mice would be a nice escape from the nightmare they’re growing up in. Marie keeps asking for books about zombies and I keep telling her I can’t read non-fiction for story time but…’ She notices the look on my face and trails off. ‘Are you okay?’

I nod.

‘Are you thinking about your kids at the airport?’

I hesitate, then nod.

She reaches out and touches my knee, looking into my stinging eyes. ‘R? I know things look bleak right now, but listen. You can’t quit. As long as you’re still breath– sorry, as long as you’re still moving , it’s not over. Okay?’

I nod.

‘Okay? Fucking say it, R.’

‘Okay.’

She smiles.

‘TWO. EIGHT. TWENTY-FOUR .’

We jolt away from each other as a speaker in the ceiling blares out a series of numbers followed by a shrill alert tone.

‘This is Colonel Rosso with a community-wide notice ,’ the speaker says. ‘The security breach has been contained. The infected officer has been neutralised, with no further casualties reported.’

I release a deep breath.

‘However …’

‘Shit,’ Julie whispers.

‘ …the original source of the breach remains at large within our walls. Security patrols will now begin a door-to-door search of every building in the Stadium. Since we don’t know where this thing might be hiding, everyone should come out of their houses and congregate in a public area. Do not confine yourself in any small spaces.’ Rosso pauses to cough. ‘Sorry about this, folks. We’ll get it taken care of, just … sit tight.’

There’s a click, and the PA goes quiet.

Julie jumps to her feet and storms into the bedroom. She pulls open the blinds, letting the floodlights burst through the window. ‘Rise and shine, Miss Greene, we’re out of time. Do you remember any old exits in the wall tunnels? Wasn’t there a fire escape somewhere by the sky box? R, can you climb a ladder yet?’

‘Wait, what?’ Nora croaks, trying to shield her eyes. ‘What’s happening?’

‘According to R’s friend, maybe the end of this shitty undead world, if we don’t get killed first.’

Nora finally comes awake. ‘Sorry, what ?’

‘I’ll tell you later. They just announced a sweep. We have maybe ten minutes. We need to find…’ Her voice fades and I watch her mouth move. The shapes her lips make for each word, the flick of tongue against glistening teeth. She is holding onto hope but my grip is slipping. She twists at her hair as she talks, her golden tresses stiff and matted and in need of a wash.

The spicy smell of her shampoo, flowers and herbs and cinnamon dancing with her natural oils. She would never say what brand she used. She liked to keep her scent a mystery .

‘R!’

Julie and Nora are staring at me, waiting. I open my mouth to speak, but I have no words. And then the front door of the house bangs open so hard it resonates through the metal walls all the way to where we’re standing. Heavy, booted footfalls pound the stairs.

‘Oh Jesus,’ Julie says in a panicked breath. She herds us out of the room and into the hallway bathroom. ‘Get his makeup back on,’ she hisses to Nora, and slams the door shut.

As Nora fumbles with her compact and tries to re-rouge my rain-stained face, I hear two voices out in the hall.

‘Dad, what’s going on? Did they find the zombie?’

‘Not yet, but they will. Have you seen anything?’

‘No, I’ve been here.’

‘Are you alone?’

‘Yeah, I’ve been here since last night.’

‘Why is the bathroom light on?’

Footsteps pound towards us.

‘Wait, Dad! Wait a second!’ She lowers her voice a little. ‘Nora and Archie are in there.’

‘Why did you just tell me you’re here alone? This is not a time for games, Julie, this is not a time for hide-and-seek.’

‘They’re… you know… in there .’

There is the briefest of hesitations. ‘Nora and Archie,’ he shouts at the door, his voice compressed and extremely loud. ‘As you just heard on the intercom there is a breach in progress. I cannot begin to imagine a worse time for lovemaking. Come out immediately.’

Nora straddles me against the sink and buries my face in her cleavage just as Grigio yanks the door open.

‘Dad! ’ Julie squeals, flashing Nora a quick look as she jumps off me.

‘Come out immediately,’ Grigio says.

We step out of the bathroom. Nora straightens her clothes and pats down her hair, doing a pretty good job of looking embarrassed. I just look at Grigio, unapologetic, limbering up my diction for its first and probably last big test. He looks back at me with that taut, angular face, peering into my eyes. There are less than two feet between us.

‘Hello, Archie,’ he says.

‘Hello, sir.’

‘You and Miss Greene are in love?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That is wonderful. Have you discussed marriage?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Why delay? Why deliberate? These are the last days. Where do you live, Archie?’

‘Goldman… Field.’

‘Goldman Dome?’

‘Yes, sir. Sorry.’

‘What work do you do at Goldman Dome.’

‘Gardens.’

‘Does that work allow you and Nora to feed your children?’

‘We don’t have children, sir.’

‘Children replace us when we die. When you have children you will need to feed them. I’m told things are bad at Goldman Dome. I’m told you are running out of everything. It’s a dark world we live in, isn’t it, Archie?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘We do the best we can with what God gives us. If God gives us stones when we ask for bread, we will sharpen our teeth and eat stones.’

‘Or make… our own bread.’

Grigio smiles. ‘Are you wearing make-up, Archie?’

Grigio stabs me.

I didn’t even notice the knife coming out of its sheath. The five-inch blade sinks into my shoulder and pokes out the other side, pinning me to the drywall. I don’t feel it and I don’t flinch. The wound doesn’t bleed.

‘Julie!’ Grigio roars, stepping back from me and drawing his pistol, his eyes wild in their deep sockets. ‘Did you bring the Dead into my city? Into my home? Did you let the Dead touch you?’

‘Dad, listen to me!’ Julie says, holding her hands out towards him. ‘R is different. He’s changing .’

‘The Dead don’t change, Julie! They are not people, they are things!’

‘How do we know that? Just because they don’t talk to us and tell us about their lives? We don’t understand their thoughts so we assume they don’t have any?’

‘We’ve done tests! The Dead have never shown any signs of self-awareness or emotional response!’

‘Neither have you , Dad! Jesus Christ – R saved my life! He protected me and brought me home! He’s human ! And there are more like him!’

‘No,’ Grigio says, abruptly calm. His hands stop wavering and the gun steadies, inches from my face.

‘Dad, please listen to me? Please?’ She takes a step closer. She is trying to stay cool but I can tell she is terrified. ‘When I was at the airport, something happened. We sparked something, and whatever it is, it’s spreading. The Dead are coming back to life, they’re leaving their hives and trying to change what they are, and we have to find a way to help. Imagine if we could cure the plague, Dad! Imagine if we could clean up this mess and start over!’

Grigio shakes his head. I can see his jaw muscles tightening under his waxy skin. ‘Julie, you are young. You don’t understand our world. We can stay alive and we can kill the things that want to kill us, but there is no grand solution. We searched for years and never found one, and now our time is up. The world is over. It can’t be cured, it can’t be salvaged, it can’t be saved.’

‘Yes it can !’ Julie screams at him, losing all composure. ‘Who decided life has to be a nightmare? Who wrote that fucking rule? We can fix it, we’ve just never tried before! We’ve always been too busy and selfish and scared!’

Grigio grits his teeth. ‘You are a dreamer. You are a child. You are your mother.’

‘Dad, listen !’

‘No.’

He cocks the gun and presses it against my forehead, directly onto Julie’s Band-Aid. Here it comes. Here is M’s ever-present irony. My inevitable death, ignoring me all those years when I wished for it daily, arriving only after I’ve decided I want to live for ever. I close my eyes and brace myself.

A spatter of blood warms my face – but it’s not mine. My eyes flash open just in time to see Julie’s knife glancing off Grigio’s hand. The gun flies out of his grip and fires when it hits the floor, then again and again as the recoil knocks it against the walls of the narrow hall like a ricocheting Superball. Everyone drops for cover, and the gun finally spins to rest touching Nora’s toes. In the deafened silence she stares down at it, wide-eyed, then looks at the general. Cradling his gashed hand, he lunges. Nora snatches the gun off the floor and aims it at his face. He freezes. He flexes his jaw and inches forward as if about to pounce anyway. But then Nora pops out the spent ammo clip, whips a fresh one out of her purse, shoves it into the gun and chambers a round, all one liquid motion without ever taking her eyes off his. Grigio steps back.

‘Go,’ she says, her eyes flicking to Julie. ‘Try to get out somehow. Just try.’

Julie grabs my hand. We back out of the room while her dad stands there vibrating with rage.

‘Goodbye, Dad,’ Julie says softly. We turn and run down the stairs.

‘Julie! ’ Grigio howls, and the sound reminds me so much of another sound, a hollow blast from a broken hunting horn, that I shiver in my damp shirt.

We are running. Julie stays in front, leading us through the cramped streets. Behind us, angry shouts ring out from the direction of Julie’s house. Then the squawk of walkie-talkies. We are running, and we are being chased. Julie’s leadership is less than decisive. We zigzag and backtrack. We are rodents scrambling in a cage. We run as the looming rooftops spin around us.

Then we hit the wall. A sheer concrete barrier laced with scaffolding, ladders and walkways to nowhere. All the bleachers are gone, but one staircase remains; a dark hallway beckons to us from the top. We run towards it. Everything on either side of the staircase has been stripped away, leaving it floating in space like Jacob’s ladder.

A shout flies up from the ground below just as we reach the opening. ‘Miss Grigio!’

We turn and look down. Colonel Rosso is at the bottom of the steps, surrounded by a retinue of Security officers. He is the only one without his gun drawn.

‘Please don’t run!’ he calls to Julie.

Julie pulls me into the hallway and we sprint into the dark.

This inner space is clearly under construction, but most of it remains exactly as it was abandoned. Hot-dog stands, souvenir kiosks and overpriced pretzel booths sit cold and lifeless in the shadows. The shouts of the Security team echo behind us. I wait for the dead end that will halt us, that will force me to turn and face the inevitable.

The hallway ends. In the faint light creeping through holes in the concrete, I see a sign on the door:

EMERGENCY EXIT

Julie runs faster, dragging me behind her. We slam into the door and it flies open—

‘Oh shhh—’ she gasps and whips around, grabbing onto the door frame as one foot dangles out over an eight-storey drop.

Cold wind whistles around the doorway, where torn stumps of a fire escape protrude from the wall.

Birds flutter past. Below, the city spreads out like a vast cemetery, high-rises like headstones.

‘Miss Grigio!’

Rosso and his officers roll to a stop about twenty feet behind us. Rosso is breathing hard, clearly too old for hot pursuit.

I look out the door at the ground below. I look at Julie. I look down again, then back at Julie.

‘Julie,’ I say.

‘What?’

‘Are you sure you want… to come with me?’

She looks at me, straining to force breath through her rapidly constricting bronchial tubes. There are questions in her eyes, maybe doubts, surely fears, but she nods. ‘Yes.’

‘Please stop running,’ Rosso groans, leaning over, hands on his knees. ‘This is not the way.’

‘I have to go,’ she says.

‘Miss Cabernet. Julie . You can’t leave your father here. You’re all he has left.’

She bites her lower lip, but her eyes are steely. ‘Dad’s dead, Rosy. He just hasn’t started rotting yet.’

She grabs my hand, the one I shattered on M’s face, and squeezes so hard I think she might break it even further. She looks up at me. ‘Well, R?’

I pull her to me. I wrap my arms around her and hold tight enough to fuse our genes. We are face to face and I almost kiss her, but instead I take two steps backwards, and we fall through the doorway.

We plummet like a shot bird. My arms and legs encircle her, almost completely enveloping her tiny body. We crash through a roof overhang, a support bar tears into my thigh, my head bounces off a beam, we tangle in a cellphone banner and rip it in half, and then, finally, we hit the ground. A chorus of cracks and crunches shoots through me as my back greets the earth and Julie’s weight flattens my chest. She rolls off me, choking and gasping for breath, and I lie there staring up at the sky. Here we are.

Julie raises herself on hands and knees and fumbles her inhaler out of her bag, takes a shot and holds it, supporting herself against the ground with one arm. When she can breathe again she crouches over me with terror in her eyes. Her face eclipses the hazy sun. ‘R!’ she whispers. ‘Hey!’

As slow and shaky as the day I first rose from the dead, I lift myself upright and hobble to my feet. Various bones grind and crackle throughout my body. I smile, and in my breathy, tuneless tenor, I sing, ‘You make… me feel so young…’

She bursts out laughing and hugs me. I feel the pressure snap a few joints back into place.

She looks up at the open doorway. Rosso is framed in it, looking down at us. Julie waves to him, and he disappears back into the Stadium with a swiftness that suggests pursuit. I try not to begrudge the man his paradigm – perhaps in his world, orders are orders.

So Julie and I run into the city. With each step I feel my body stabilising, bones realigning, tissues stiffening around cracks to keep me from falling apart. I’ve never felt anything like this before. Is this some form of healing ?

We dash through the empty streets, past countless rusty cars, drifts of dead leaves and debris. We violate one-way streets. We blow stop signs. Ahead of us: the edge of town, the high grassy hill where the city opens up and the freeway leads elsewhere. Behind us: the relentless roar of assault vehicles gunning out of the Stadium gate. This cannot stand! declare the steel-jawed mouths of the rule makers. Find those little embers and stomp them out! With these howls at our backs, we crest the hill.

We are face to face with an army.

They stand in the grassy field next to the freeway ramps. Hundreds of them. They mill around in the grass, staring at the sky or at nothing, their grey, sunken faces oddly serene. But when the front line sees us they freeze, then pivot in our direction. Their focus spreads in a wave until the entire mob is standing at attention. Julie gives me an amused glance as if to say, Really? Then a disturbance ripples through the ranks, and a burly, bald, six-foot-five zombie pushes his way into the open.

‘M,’ I say.

‘R,’ he says. He gives Julie a quick nod. ‘Julie.’

‘Hiiii…’ she says, leaning into me warily.

Our pursuers’ tyres screech and we hear a rev of engines. They are very close. M steps up to the peak of the hill and the mob follows him. Julie huddles close to me as they sweep in around us, absorbing us into their odorous army, their rank ranks. It could be my imagination or a trick of the light, but M’s skin looks less ashen than usual. His partial lips seem more expressive. And for the first time since I’ve known him, his neatly trimmed beard is not stained with blood.

The trucks barrel towards us, but as the swarm of the Dead rises into view on the hilltop, the vehicles slow down, then grumble to a stop. There are only four of them. Two Hummer H2s, a Chevy Tahoe and an Escalade, all spray-painted military olive drab. The hulking machines look small and pitiful from where we stand. The Tahoe’s door opens, and Colonel Rosso slowly emerges. Clutching his rifle, he scans the row upon row of swaying bodies, weighing odds and strategies. His eyes are wide behind his thick glasses. He swallows, then lowers his gun.

‘I’m sorry, Rosy,’ Julie calls down to him, and points at the Stadium. ‘I can’t do it any more, okay? It’s a fucking lie. We think we’re surviving in there but we’re not .’

Rosso is looking hard at the zombies arrayed around him, peering into their faces. He’s old enough that he’s probably been around since the beginning of all this. He knows what the Dead are supposed to look like, and he can tell when something’s different, no matter how subtle, subliminal, subcutaneous.

‘You can’t save the world by yourself!’ he yells. ‘Come back and we can discuss this!’

‘I’m not by myself,’ Julie says, and gestures at the forest of zombies swaying around her. ‘I’m with these guys.’

Rosso’s lips twist in a tortured grimace, then he jumps in his vehicle, slams the door, and revs back towards the Stadium with the other three right behind. A brief respite, a quick suck of breath, because I know they aren’t quitting, they can’t quit, they’re just gathering their strength, their weapons, their brute-force determination.

step three

living

Nora Greene is in the square by the Stadium’s main gate, standing with General Rosso in front of a huge crowd. She is a little nervous. She wishes she had smoked before coming out today, but it seemed inappropriate somehow. She wanted a clear head for this occasion.

‘Okay, folks,’ Rosso begins, straining his reedy voice to reach the back of the assembly spilling out into the far streets. ‘We’ve prepared you for this as best we could, but I know it may still be a little… uncomfortable.’

Not everyone in the Stadium is here, but everyone who wants to be is. The rest are hiding behind locked doors with guns drawn, but Nora hopes they’ll come out eventually to see what’s going on.

‘Let me just assure you once again that you are not in any danger,’ Rosso continues. ‘The situation has changed.’

Rosso looks at Nora and nods.

The guards pull open the gate, and Nora shouts, ‘Come on in, guys!’

One by one, still clumsy but walking more or less straight, they wander into the Stadium. The Half-Dead. The Nearly-Living. The crowd murmurs anxiously and contracts as the zombies form a loose line in front of the gate.

‘These are just a few of them,’ Nora says, moving forward to address the people. ‘There are more out there every day. They’re trying to cure themselves. They’re trying to cure the plague, and we need to do whatever we can to help.’

‘Like what?’ someone shouts.

‘We’re going to study it,’ Rosso says. ‘Get close to it, knead it and wring it until answers start to emerge. I know it’s vague, but we have to start somewhere.’

‘Talk to them,’ Nora says. ‘I know it’s scary at first, but look them in the eyes. Tell them your name and ask them theirs.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Rosso says. ‘Each one will have a guard assigned to them at all times, but try to believe that they won’t hurt you. We have to entertain the idea that this can work.’

Nora steps back to let the crowd come forward. Cautiously, they do. They approach the zombies, while wary guards keep rifles trained. For their part, the zombies are handling this awkward experience with admirable patience. They just stand there and wait, some of them attempting affable grins while trying to ignore the laser dots jittering on their foreheads. Nora moves to join the people, crossing her fingers behind her back and hoping for the best.

‘Hi there.’

She turns towards the voice. One of the zombies is watching her. He steps forwards from the line and gives her a smile. His lips are thin and slightly mangled under a short blond beard, but they, along with countless other wounds on his body, appear to be healing.

‘Um… hello…’ Nora says, glancing up and down his considerable height. He must be well over six feet. He’s a little heavyset, but his muscular arms strain his tattered shirt. His perfectly bald head gleams like a pale grey pearl.

‘I’m Nora,’ she says, tugging at her curls.

‘My name is Mm… arcus,’ he says, his voice a velvety rumble. ‘And you’re… the most beautiful woman… I’ve ever seen.’

Nora giggles and twirls her hair faster. ‘Oh my .’ She reaches out a hand. ‘Nice to meet you… Marcus.’

The boy is in the airport. The hallways are dark, but he’s not scared. He runs through the shadowed food court, past all the unlit signs and mouldy leftovers, half-finished beers and cold pad thai. He hears the rattle of a solitary skeleton wandering in an adjacent corridor and quickly changes course, darting around the corner without pausing. The Boneys are slow now. The moment the boy’s dad and stepmom first came back here, something happened to them all. Now they wander aimlessly like bees in winter. They stand motionless, obsolete equipment waiting to be replaced.

The boy is carrying a box. It’s empty now, but his arms are tired. He runs into the connecting overpass and stops to get his bearings.

‘Alex!’

The boy’s sister appears behind him. She’s carrying a box, too. She has bits of tape stuck all over her fingers.

‘All done, Joan?’

‘All done!’

‘Okay. Let’s go get more.’

They run down the corridor. As they hit the conveyer, the power comes back on and the belt lurches under their feet. The boy and the girl are running barefoot at the speed of light, flying down the corridor like loping deer while the morning sun drifts up behind them. At the end of the corridor they nearly collide with another group of kids, all holding boxes.

‘All done,’ the kids say.

‘Okay,’ Alex says, and they run together. Some of the kids still wear tatters. Some of them are still grey. But most of them are alive. The kids lacked the instinctual programming of the adults. They had to be taught how to do everything. How to kill easily, how to wander aimlessly, how to sway and groan and properly rot away. But now the classes have stopped. No one is teaching them, and like perennial bulbs dried up and waiting in the winter earth, they are bursting back to life all on their own.

The fluorescent lights flicker and buzz, and the sound of a record needle scratches onto the speakers overhead. Some enterprising soul has hijacked the airport PA system. Sweet, swooning strings swell into the gloom, and Francis Albert Sinatra’s voice echoes lonely in the empty halls.

Something wonderful happens in summer …

when the sky is a heavenly blue …

The dusty speakers pop and sizzle, short out and distort. The record skips. But it’s the first time in years this place’s inert air has been stirred by music.

As the kids run to the Arrivals gate to get fresh boxes, fresh rolls of tape, they pass a pale figure shambling down the hall. The zombie glances at the Living children as they run past, but doesn’t pursue them. Her appetite has been waning lately. She doesn’t feel the hunger like she used to. She watches the kids disappear around the corner, then continues on her way. She doesn’t know where she’s going exactly, but there’s a white glow at the end of this hallway, and it looks nice. She stumbles towards it.

Something wonderful happens in summer …

when the moon makes you feel all aglow …

You fall in love, you fall in love …

you want the whole world to know …

She emerges into the waiting area of Gate 12, flooded with bright morning sunlight. Something in here is different than before. On the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the runways, someone has taped small photos to the glass. Side by side and stacked about five squares high, they form a strip that runs all the way to the end of the room.

Something wonderful happens in summer …

and it happens to only a few.

But when it does … yes when it does …

The zombie approaches the photos warily. She stands in front of them, staring with mouth slightly agape.

A girl climbing an apple tree. A kid spraying his brother with a hose. A woman playing a cello. An elderly couple gently touching. A boy with a dog. A boy crying. A newborn deep in sleep. And one older photo, creased and faded: a family at a water park. A man, a woman and a little blonde girl, smiling and squinting in the sun.

The zombie stares at this mysterious and sprawling collage. The sunlight glints off the name tag on her chest, so bright it hurts her eyes. For hours she stands there, motionless. Then she takes in a slow breath. Her first in months. Dangling limply at her sides, her fingers twitch to the music.

‘R.’

I open my eyes. I am lying on my back, arms folded behind my head, looking up at a flawless summer sky. ‘Yes?’

Julie stirs on the red blanket, scooting a little closer to me. ‘Do you think we’ll ever see jets up there again?’

I think for a moment. I watch the little molecules swim in my eye fluids. ‘Yes.’

‘Really?’

‘Maybe not us. But I think the kids will.’

‘How far do you think we can take this?’

‘Take what?’

‘Rebuilding everything. Even if we can completely end the plague… do you think we’ll ever get things back to the way they were?’

A lone starling swoops across the distant sky, and I imagine a white jet trail sketching out behind it, like a florid signature on a love note. ‘I hope not,’ I say.

We are silent for a while. We are lying in the grass. Behind us, the battered old Mercedes waits patiently, whispering to us in sizzles and pings as its engine cools. Mercey, Julie named it. Who is this woman lying next to me, so overflowing with vitae she can grant life to a car?

‘R,’ she says.

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you remember your name yet?’

On this hillside on the edge of a crumbled freeway, the bugs and birds in the grass perform a tiny simulation of traffic noise. I listen to their nostalgic symphony, and shake my head. ‘No.’

‘You could give yourself one, you know. Just pick one. Whatever you want.’

I consider this. I thumb through the index of names in my brain. Complex etymologies, languages, ancient meanings passed down through generations of cultural traditions. But I’m a new thing. A fresh canvas. I can choose what history I build my future on, and I choose a new one.

‘My name is R,’ I say with a little shrug.

She twists her head to look at me. I can feel her sun-yellow eyes on the side of my face, as if trying to tunnel into my ear and explore my brain. ‘You don’t want to get your old life back?’

‘No.’ I sit up, folding my arms over my knees and looking down into the valley. ‘I want this one.’

Julie smiles. She sits up with me and faces what I’m facing.

The airport spreads out below us like a thrown gauntlet. A challenge. There was no global transformation after the skeletons surrendered. Some of us are on our way back to life, some are still Dead. Some are still lingering here at the airport, or in other cities, countries, continents, wandering and waiting. But to fix a problem that spans the globe, an airport seems like a good place to start.