Day Ten
Day Ten:
On the tenth day of Winterfic, Hazel gave to you, a bit of Oh My Heart (Zombie!au)
“Anything?”
Natalie shook her head, blond hair braided back in two. She flipped the switch on the radio she’d been working on for the last month. “If you’re asking me if I’ve done my job, then the answer is yes. But no, nothing.”
Logan, standing beside Remus, cursed. Remus rubbed at his eyes. He adjusted his bow over his shoulder and stared at the contraption. He felt like he was in outer-space, trying to reach home, and their orbit was somehow off.
Natalie shrugged. “If there’s a problem, it’s on their side. Sorry, Doc.”
Logan pressed his hands flat against the table, eyes hard. “How’re we suppose to find anyone if we can’t talk to each other?”
Natalie narrowed her eyes, hand resting on her ax that had a constant presence beside her. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Tremblay. We’re all looking for someone.”
“Are you looking hard enough?”
“Watch it there, honey,” Natalie said slowly. “Just because we’re scout partners, doesn’t mean I’ll go easy on you.”
Logan stared at her for a long moment before giving the table a small, frustrated shove and turning away.
“Logan,” Natalie sighed. “A radio won’t solve our problems. The dead are still dead.”
“He’s not dead.”
“I’m not saying he is. But stop putting all of your hopes into one thing.” She looked down. “It’ll just hurt you.”
Remus glanced at Logan. He knew his list well. His only remaining family member, his older sister, Noelle, and a boy called Finn. Newcomers were rare this far out of the city, but on the rare occasion they did get one, Logan was ruthless with his questioning. He had a photograph that he showed. It had been taken at a party. Logan looked younger, in college. Maybe that was where he and Finn had met. Remus had never asked. They were standing in a backyard somewhere, picket fence, open grill, string lights. Logan was standing, laughing at something off camera, and Finn was there, too, pressed up behind him, arm wrapped around his chest.
Remus, honestly, didn’t like seeing that photo. It looked too much like the old-normal. Like before. Times like those, of parties and buying packs of beer from the corner store, of finding someone to spend the rest of your life with—a life that would keep growing and turning out new adventures, new loves—were over. Remus would rather forget them than long for them.
God help one woman, May, who had given Logan a hesitant maybe when she’d first arrived and he’d shown her the picture. Logan had all but killed her with his questions. Where? When was this? It’s yes or no, have you seen him? Is he alive? Answer me now.
Logan seemed to think there was a good chance that Finn was in the city. Remus would have been jealous, he wished he had an idea where his family could be—if they were anywhere at all. But to be in the city seemed like a fate worse than death.
“What can I do, is there anything?” Remus asked. “What about Celeste, she’s got scrap medal and…I don’t know, what do you need?”
Natalie gave a sad shake of her head. “Like I said. It’s them, not us.”
“They have got to want to be contacted,” Remus said. “Why wouldn’t they?”
“Beats me. They might just not have the equipment.” She smiled and tapped her temple. “Or any brains to use it.”
It was true. Remus counted them lucky to have Natalie’s skill at hand. She’d even managed to rig up an old DVD player and a projector in the canteen some nights. The amount of smiles and laughter had been jarring.
Remus gave a short nod of thanks before pushing his way out of the tent. The winds were picking up and the entry flaps would have to be tied down. It looked like a storm.
Logan pushed after him, glancing up at the sky. “We should send another party to the city.”
“No.”
“But we haven’t been able to get into any buildings. And if the Walkers are coming out in the day now, maybe night’s the better option. We will have darkness.”
“The Walkers don’t see well at any time of day.” Remus returned the smiles he received as they walked down through the trades. He could smell fire and leather, hear people working. “It’s scent and sound, Logan. I know you have people you’re looking for, but you’ll have to be sensible about it.”
Logan scoffed. “There is nothing sensible about any of this.”
Remus sighed and turned into a stall. “Can’t argue with you there. Thomas?”
“Here,” came a voice from behind many shelves before a man pushed through the flap separating the counter from the back. He had dark brown skin and kind eyes, and he grinned widely. “What’s up, Doc?”
Remus leaned on the counter. “Does everyone here know I never actually graduated?”
Logan laughed. “Pretty sure an apocalypse counts as a diploma.”
“Let’s hope I can live up to the name.”
“Look at it this way,” Thomas said. “Your last name isn’t Walker, like mine.”
Remus winced. “You got me there. Sorry.”
“Re.” Thomas arched a brow. “You already do live up to the name. You always have.”
“You haven’t known me always.”
“I have in this always.” Thomas flashed another smile. “Now, what’s up, Doc?”
“Think its going to storm. We’ll need—”
“Buckets are already out,” Thomas said. “Shower tubs open. By Nat’s radar, we’ll have hot showers for, oh, two days.”
“That’s a record,” Logan sighed.
Thomas spread his hands. “Unless you wanna volunteer to hike to the river…”
A crackling of thunder seemed to accentuate his words from above and Thomas threw his head back and laughed when Logan flinched.
Just as suddenly, a familiar, dreaded four clicks sounded from all three of their radios. A signal from the patrol line. Logan’s head snapped up, his hand going behind his shoulders, to the hilt of the long blade slung across his back. Thomas, wordlessly, jumped the makeshift counter and followed Remus beside Logan back down the trade alley. The rain had started. Someone had seen a Walker near camp. The signal came again, then once more—it was a hard thing, sounding an alarm that needed to be as quiet as possible.
“Mon Dieu,” Remus heard Logan whisper under his breath. “Je vous en supplie…”
Remus recognized the prayer, though Logan had never shown signs of being religious. My God, I beg you…
Remus didn’t hear the end of it, but he could guess. Reunions, finding each other was all anyone sought…but not like this.
Remus wouldn’t beg for anyone. Not when it could end like this.
They joined the crowd running towards the perimeter, arrows knocking against his back, but soundless thanks to the felt that Celeste had wrapped them in for him. The alarm only told them there was a Walker, not how many—and not at what stage of the transition they were in. The tall grasses on the outskirts of the camp brushed up to Remus knees and, maybe, in some form or way, he prayed, too.
There were four stages. The first was numbness. It’s what allowed the infection to spread. Blood on the clothes but no pain? Most people assumed the blood was someone else’s and that they were fine. It was only when the pain crept in that they realized, but, even then, there was only about an hour until stage two set in—the headache. The bite went strange to the mind. Remus had heard it described as an intense burning, and he’d tried to rack his brain for what exactly the burning was, but all he could think of was some sort of brain fever setting in, or perhaps the infected bite then acted as some sort of venom, altering its victim. There were very small windows to find out more, and very rare opportunities. He’d seen more bites than he could count, but never, never would he ask anyone to go through the four stages for something like observation. The world was cruel and inhumane enough. Remus only knew about the stages from word of mouth—as good as rumor and not helpful—or his own accidental stumbling upon victims far enough along. At that point, they merely begged for death—if they even could do anything that sensible at all.
Stage three was the delirium. It sent most people back to the old world, to their old lives. Rambles about dinner reservations or running to the store for milk. Talking to people who weren’t there. The mind, offering one last defense, one final strand of relief to the human conscience. Remus had never seen the delirium be painful, or terrifying. It was like a small, flash of peace for the victim, a happy memory, before everything was lost.
Stage four, they knew the most about of course. One’s self was undone. The Walker. The Dead. Corpsie. Chomper. Gnawer. Brainer. Zombie. More lore than science, stuffed with nicknames as a buffer against what it actually was. The last thing Remus remembered seeing on TV before the world fell apart were frantic questions that were still unanswered. Where did this come from? How did this happen? What is it?
“There!” someone called out, and Remus dropped down from a run to a walk with the rest of them. It was in the trees—the figure of perhaps a young girl. A body with a loose, ragged dress hanging off of it, long blond hair that looked oily in the wind. She was turned away from them, but Remus was glad. He didn’t want to see her face, her walk was enough. The uneven, strangely smooth gait of the Dead.
Remus touched his radio at his hips and clicked it twice, two long beats of silence, then once more. I’ve got it, the signal read.
Painless. Remus would make it painless. Clean. No one deserved to see any of this. He didn’t care how close he had to get. He walked in his soundless, endlessly practiced way, drawing in closer and closer to the Walker’s back, it’s slowly dragging feet. His own breathing was loud in his ears as he used a tree as partial cover, reaching the edge of the woods. He let the trunk support some of his weight—he always felt weak, just before a kill.
Remus raised the bow, and at the creak of the string, the Walker snapped around. Unnaturally. Too jerking, too quick, eyes too wide. They were hazel, yellows and greens, and young. They reminded Remus too much of—of his—
He let the arrow fly. It lodged in her chest, making her sway. There was a horrible moment of complete silence.
And she dropped.
God, did Remus wish that, if this virus refused to take life in its entirety, it would at least have taken the resemblance to humankind out of its victims. To an unaware onlooker, it looked as though he had done nothing more than kill an innocent human.