He knew something was wrong as soon as he cleared the door to the fifth floor. Stairs would keep him in shape, but god damn he was missing elevators. There never seemed to be enough air inside the contraptions, but Lord, now he appreciated the convenience.
There were a whole lot of conveniences he would have liked to have back.
Steph, paper-pale, stood on navy carpet outside Ginny’s door, sandwiched between the room the teenage girls had shared last night and Lee’s own. She turned, her blue eyes huge, and Mark leaned close to the door, finishing up a very loud sentence. “…go get Mr Lee.”
“I’m here,” Lee said, and the relief crossing their transparent faces gave him a hell of a bad feeling, way down low. “What’s all this?”
“She…she…” Steph’s eyes welled with trembling tears; her pupils were wide and black. “She says she’s…Mr Lee, she says she’s…”
“She says she’s got it,” Mark cut in. His hands worked at each other, scrubbing hard, and the cuffs of his jacket whispered while he did. “She says she got the zombie flu.”
The bottom dropped out of Lee’s brain and stomach at the same time. “Slow down. She says what now?” He might have blinked across the intervening space, because all of a sudden he was shouldering Kasprak aside and reaching for the prissy silver bar of the doorknob. It rattled, locked.
Of course.
“Go away.” Ginny’s voice came, muffled and sweet, through the door. She never sounded this sharp, not even when she was angry. “Just go away.” The words trailed off in a barrage of deep, crouplike coughing, and when it faded, he heard something shifting on the other side.
“Can’t do that, darlin.” He sounded numb, even to himself. Tell me the damn kids misunderstood. Tell me you’re havin allergies or some such. “Ginny? Talk to me. What’s goin on in there?”
“High fever,” she gasped. “Flulike…symptoms. Blood pressure elevated, heart rate…”
God damn it. Lee’s hands ached. One of them, gripping the doorknob, creaked white-knuckle, the other was a fist, fingernails digging into his palm. “Ginny.” Very calmly. “Ginny, darlin, unlock this door, and we’ll see about this.”
“No.” A short, sharp, tortured breath. Sounded like she was breathing through wet cotton, and his own lungs were starved just hearing it. “I’ve blocked…blocked it. If it’s the…the zombie flu, I won’t…won’t hurt anyone.” Another barrage of coughing, and Steph made a small sound behind Lee, a half-moan. “Go away.”
There was a terrible finality to the last two words, soft though they were. Virginia Mills had made up her mind about something.
“Ginny. Ginny.” He shouted, and rattled the doorknob. No use. He considered putting his shoulder to the work, but if she’d blocked it…
Oh hell no. No, no, no. Fuck no.
Lee heard his own voice from a great distance away, calm and cold. “Get down to Juju and y’all pack up. If I ain’t down in an hour, y’all get the hell out of here. Go on, now.” Receding footsteps—the kids knew when to shut their mouths and get moving, thank Jesus. Lee found himself at the door to his own room, the card-key slipping a little against sweating fingertips.
Now just what are you doin, son? He could almost smell Big Q’s aftershave patted on greying cheeks, and feel the paralyzing weight of his grandfather’s Quartine-brand yaller-stare when the old man suspected Lee of some hijinks.
“What I gotta,” he mumbled, and took a good look at the wall separating his room from Ginny’s. No connecting door, of course. It couldn’t be that easy.
Only what I gotta, Poppa. Like usual.
Dark Well
Later, he figured he just could have gone through the drywall, except if there was something load-bearing in the way. Finding that out would have been un-fuckin’-comfortable indeed.
Instead, Lee strode to the bed, where his baggage waited in a neat pile. A few moments of digging in his go-backpack unearthed what he wanted—he wrenched the hardpac open, and the three capped glass syringes nestled in foam looked way too small to carry any salvation. He stuck one in his mouth and ran for the sliding glass door to the balcony, ripping the curtains aside so hard material tore and something in the metal track above pinged as it broke.
Freezing weather was no match for the ice inside him, a sword from his belly all the way up his spine, filling his head with what needed to happen and how to do it. Getting over the cheap metal railing wasn’t hard; the real problem was an outcropping of concrete between his balcony and Ginny’s. It was probably designed to stop what he was doing right now, but Lee took a deep breath, clinging to an ice-slick rail with his right hand, and put his foot out. His arms straightened, and the consciousness of hanging off the side of a building with something hard, and chilly, and glass clutched in his teeth hit him.
He didn’t have time to think about it. Lurching sideways, letting go of his railing, he hung in space for a long moment before his toes caught on the closest baluster of the railing next door—Ginny’s room. His stomach cramped like he was doing the mother of all crunches or was back in basic, dropping and giving a hundred sit-ups under a sadistic drill sergeant. Lee curled around the concrete, almost tearing two fingernails on his right hand as his fingers skittered across the bulge, looking for purchase, looking for something, anything that would push him over to where he needed to be.
His left hand banged on spindly iron, there was a screech of bolts loosening in concrete, and for a sickening moment everything lurched and he knew he was going to fall when the cheapass sonuvabitch rail pulled loose of its moorings.
Then physics was, for once, kind to him, and Ginny’s balcony railing stopped rocking, the bolts almost—but not quite—torn free. Lee clambered carefully over it, not quite sure how he’d turned the corner and not caring, either. He almost went right through the French door too, deciding at the last moment he didn’t need broken glass to add to the shitshow. So he set his boots, curled his bruised left hand and bloody right around the handle, and reminded himself not to clench his teeth and get a mouthful of shards and the vile green liquid inside the tube.
Of course, conscientious soul that she was, Ginny had locked the glass balcony door, too. The curtains were open, and Lee caught a blur of paleness on the rosy carpet. Ginny, tossed like a broken doll on the floor, probably about to start convulsing.
God, if you’re there…
But God never had been. It was up to him.
Lee’s back arched, his feet dug into icy concrete, and he heaved again. And again. His mouth was full, so he couldn’t say her name, but it echoed all the way down inside him, a flare dropping into a dark well.
Noisy Death
The convulsions were going to start again, she could feel them hovering, trembling in every muscle group. Cold, she was so, so cold. A gush of icy fluid crawled over her, skittering insect feet pinch-pricking her skin. The fever had mounted all through the night, she could barely see to scrawl her symptoms, but at least she’d made everyone else safe. Someone pounding at the door, and she heard herself, precise and sharp, telling them she was sick. Just go away, she heard herself say. I’ve blocked it.
With that task finished, she retreated from the jumble of furniture near the door. Her legs gave out, and all she could think was that it was a shame she hadn’t figured out more about the illness. At least someone would be proud of her for not putting others in harm’s way.
Who, though? She couldn’t quite remember. Her father? Yes, that was it, he’d be proud of her for…
The world spun away, came back. There was a banging, a clattering, and a fresh, frigid breeze touched her sweat-slick skin. Jolting, jittering, muscles locking, her right wrist trapped and the rest of her body trying to curl up around it, an iron bar across her chest. Something around her right biceps, cruelly tight, a stinging slap inside her right elbow.
An icy spike shoved its way into the crook of her arm, and Ginny moaned weakly.
“Don’t you give up on me now.” Male, rough and low. ??
?Ginny, sweetheart, darlin, don’t you dare give up on me.”
Who was it? For a moment she had the name, it trembled on tongue- and brain-tip before vanishing under another gathering convulsion, tired muscles locking.
Get away from me. Was she hallucinating? The fever could be cooking her brain right now. Get away.
He kept talking. “Don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare, sweetheart, I will get you to New York, I will carry you there on my goddamn back if I have to, don’t you dare give up on me.”
The spike jammed into her arm reached her shoulder. Ginny screamed, hoarsely. It was an involuntary noise, her diaphragm and core muscles locking down and her vocal folds slamming shut. Dimly, she heard…barking? The dog, where was the dog? She hadn’t locked him in here with her, had she?
Oh God please, please. She only wanted it to be over. It hurt.
“Goddammit, stop!” her hallucination yelled. She remembered his name right before she lost it under a wave of sticky, gelatinous agony. “There’s shit in front of it, just calm down!”
Ginny choked. Hot, rancid liquid filled her throat. She couldn’t breathe, was this what it felt like to die? Choking on her own vomit—well, she hadn’t had much of an appetite, it would only be thin scorching bile and…
The world blinked away again, came back at high speed, ran over her. A wheel spun, light and dark pie-slices alternating. More yelling.
If this was death, it was noisy.
A wintry fist reached through her ribs and squeezed everything caught inside that bony cage, her heart stuttered, and Ginny Mills knew no more.
Take Care of Myself, Thank You
“It ain’t that. Look, she ain’t got no fever.”
“I ain’t convinced, Lee. What in hell are you doin?”
“What I gotta, Juju. As fucking usual.”
“So she stacked all that in front of the door, and…dear Lord and sonny Jesus, look at this. Wrote down her temperature.”
“Stay outta that. It’s her diary.”
“Sure you don’t want a peek?”
“Juju, for God’s sake.”
“When’s the weddin? Rough findin a preacher round here. Course, if she starts chewin—”
“She ain’t gonna. No fever, and she’s restin quiet. You want to do something useful, or you gonna keep bein a shithead?”
“Stickin with what I know. You broke the door. How in hell did you…Good Lord. You crazy sumbitch.”
“That a compliment?”
“Partly.” Metal ground against metal, a French door sliding inside a warped track. “We stayin here for a while, then?”
“You could catch up with ’em, if you left now.”
“Not what I asked, Lee.”
A long pause. “We’ll see when she wakes up.”
“Aight then. I’ll get the kids settled.”
“Juju?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a good man.”
“Yeah. Right.” Footsteps receding. “’M I s’posed to shoot you if you get sick?”
“Take care of myself, thank you.”
“Yeah.” Wood crunched, a boot aimed viciously at a chair leg. “Right.”
Hinges groaned. Excited barking, and a babble of questions. Cloth moved. “All right, darlin,” Lee Quartine said, softly. “Let’s get you in a room that ain’t busted.”
All Sorts of Messed Up
It was a long, grey, cold afternoon, and it didn’t get any better when they stopped at a Marathon off the freeway. Traveling, Carline Goldisch had decided, was for the birds. Especially when you were having what Mom termed monthlies or what the girls at school called, with pitiless amusement, the rag.
She was getting tired of looking out a window onto snow, more snow, and busted-up cars, too. Stopping wasn’t much better, because then she had to move around and hope nothing escaped around the plug, so to speak. “You got any aspirin?”
“What hurts?” Miz Frank wasn’t nearly as interesting as Miz Mills, but she was okay. The lean black lady leaned against the side of her shiny, red, definitely new Toyota SUV. It even had that new-car smell, which Mandy said was mostly chemicals. It made Carline’s nose tingle and her head ache, even with the window down a bit, and even with her tampon worries she was glad they stopped every couple hours.
Women traveled different than men, that was for sure. Mr Quartine didn’t want to stop for nothin, it took Miz Ginny putting her foot down to get them a bathroom break. He crushed on her so hard it was a wonder the snow didn’t melt around him, too.
They were nice, but going to Atlanta was the better bet. At least, Mandy said so, and she was the one with the brains. Why she hung around with a dumbass white girl was anyone’s guess, and sometimes Carline was pretty sure it was because there weren’t many other options in town.
Options out of town didn’t seem too plentiful either, right now. Carline sucked in a small breath. “Got cramps.” They weren’t bad as Mandy’s. Nothing in Carline’s life was as bad as Mandy’s, and sometimes she didn’t know how to feel about that. Even though Mandy’s parents had a nice house, and they churched regular and sent Mandy to a good school, there were still…problems. Carline’s mama wasn’t the only one who scrubbed every dish twice, so to speak.
“Oh, Lord, honey. I’ve got some Midol.” Miz Frank bustled for the back of the Toyota. The glass door of the Marathon station—what Dad would’ve called a “stop-n-rob”—reflected the side of the red car and the blue-and-white pumps, snow-packed pavement and the hind end of Chantal’s pink Cadillac. I didn’t sell no Mary Kay to get that, Chantal said, smiling in her peculiar way, and Carline got the idea you didn’t want to ask any questions.
Mandy put an arm over her shoulders, the shell of her brand new, thickly insulated coat rasping against Carline’s. “Is it bad?” The tips of her beaded braids made soft sweet music as they moved.
They didn’t really have to worry about people seeing them now, but each time they touched in public the thump at the bottom of Carline’s stomach hit and she had to work not to glance around like she was guilty.
Which she was. The sinners were the only ones left, and she might have had fun guessing everyone else’s secret crimes if her lady bits didn’t feel like they were trying to escape by doing the Jackalemon Twist and sending bad thoughts all through her lower back as well.
“I hate it.” She hoped she didn’t sound whiny.
Mandy nodded, glancing at the road. She wasn’t very relaxed, but then, being out in the open was dangerous. “You could take the pill straight through.”
“Didn’t know I’d need it.” That was something good about sinning girl-like—there wasn’t any chance of getting knocked up and having to drive over the state line or figure out how to scrape together cash. Some places had that morning-after pill, but you needed your parents’ say-so to get it, and while Carline was secretly of the opinion hell wasn’t gonna be that bad, asking your mama and daddy for that particular signature was uncomfortable to contemplate.
You could fake it, like you did with absence-or-tardy notes. But the risk of the pharmacist calling…Well, nobody was gonna be calling Mama and Daddy to confirm anything now.
And that was how Carline knew she was a sinner in truth, because she was secretly but undeniably glad.
Oh, she missed Mom, to be sure. She’d about cried her eyes out, and the nightmares showed up like clockwork. Hell would probably be those nightmares all the time and never waking up.
But she didn’t miss her daddy’s first-of-the-month whiskey tots, or Mom’s midnight prayin’, or the yellin’ near the end of the month when Dad’s disability check ran thin, or—really, the list was pretty long.
She laid her head on Mandy’s shoulder. “How you doin, sweetpants?”
“Better than you, looks like.” Mandy’s smile, sensed more than seen, was all the sunshine the day needed. “I wonder—”
She didn’t get a chance to say what she wondered, because a gunshot cracked close by and Mandy dragg
ed her down, Carline’s knees banging on concrete and her shoulder hitting the side of the Toyota. “Ow!” she yelled, and immediately felt like a fool. Shouting bounced off the pavement, fell dead in the snow. Two more shots, close together, sounded like they were coming from behind the Marathon.
Where the bathrooms were, and the employee entrance they’d worked open to get inside.
“Into the car,” Mandy gasped. “Girl, get your ass in the car!”
Miz Frank slammed the back of the Toyota shut and came around the end, her shotgun in both hands and her face set and grim. “Get in!” she yelled, and lifted the gun, slow, slow, like she was working through syrup. Carline snapped a glance at the side of the gas station while she floundered on her knees, grabbing for the door-handle.
The zombie staggered into view, wearing a blue polyester vest that flapped over its chewed-up ribs. It was once a skinny teenage kid, and for a weird, dreamlike moment she thought it was Mark Kasprak, somehow come along and dressed up to play a prank on them because he was a boy and they did things like that.
“Get up!” Mandy screamed, and Carline’s fingers found what they were looking for. She ripped a fingernail as she surged upwards, hauling on the handle, and almost clocked herself in the face with the door too.
“Shitfuck!” Carline yelled, and that would have been funny if the zombie hadn’t seen them and dropped to all fours, its growl a thin nasty buzz. Snow made a weird squeaky sound under its palms and filth-crusted wingtips; Carline grabbed Mandy’s shoulder and the back of her jeans too, all but lifting her bodily into the backseat. She piled in afterward and lunged desperately for the door, dragging it shut and yelling because her foot was caught. Metal banged off her ankle, and she let out a roar that would have surprised exactly nobody who had ever seen her at cheerleading practice.