Anything But Zombies (17 page)

Yikes. Forever is a long time.

“I'm going back inside, baby,” I said. “I need to sleep. The games start early tomorrow.”

“Grab him,” Maura said to my neighbors. “We'll have to make him sign.”

“You what?” I asked as everyone rushed me. “Oh, crap!”

I turned and ran inside, intending to head back upstairs, but I tripped on the hall rug and had to scoot-scamper my way into the dining room instead. I could hear them rushing through the house. A hundred feet all pounding against our bamboo laminate flooring.

“TONY!” Maura screamed. “Time to sign!”

I got through the dining room and was into the living room when my path was blocked by Margo Zoletti. She was holding a baseball bat and smiling.

“What are you going to do with that?” I asked.

“Sign or no football,” she said, raising the baseball bat above her head as she turned to my 64-inch HDTV.

“You won't do that, Margo,” I laughed. Margo had been a college cheerleader. There was no way she'd hurt my TV.

Then she hurt my TV. She hurt it so bad. So bad . . .

“And the next thing you remember is that you were dancing in the street while your house burned?”

“Yeah.”

“You have no idea how you got the gas can? Or why you were burning your house?”

“Uh . . . no.”

“Anthony, honesty is how I help you. Please, be honest with me. Why did you burn your house down?”

“Because . . . because . . .”

“Yes?”

“Because . . . because they made me sign! They said I'd get a new TV and then I could watch all the football I wanted! They made me! They forced me!”

“But why would you burn your house down if they were giving you a new TV?”

“Because they lied! That's what Realators do! They take over people, they control their minds, they get them to sign, and THEN THEY LIE!”

“Calm down, Anthony. Tell me, how did they lie?”

“It wasn't in the Covenants. I signed like they said, then they laughed at me and told me I should have read what I was signing. There was no rider for a new TV, Dr. Chalmers! THERE WAS NO RIDER!”

“Okay, okay, take a deep breath. Center yourself.”

“Sorry, sorry, it's just so hard to think about. No TV. No TV. That meant no football.”

“So you burned down your house? Why? I'm still not seeing the connection.”

“I just said! No football. What the hell is the point of a house if there's no TV and no football?”

“To live in, Anthony. To raise your family in. The normal reaction to losing a television is not to burn down your house.”

“It is when you're told you not only aren't getting a new TV, but you will NEVER be getting a new TV! My God, Doctor! Haven't you been listening? There was no rider! Why am I even talking to you? What's the point?”

“Your daughters. You are talking to me so I can say you are fit to see your daughters.”

“Right, right. My daughters. How do they . . . how do they look?”

“They are healing. It's about all I can say.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“Are you, Anthony?”

“What?”

“Are you sorry? I need to hear it from your lips.”

“Hear what?”

“That you are sorry for burning down your house. For hurting your daughters. For trying to burn the other houses down. I need to hear you say it.”

“I don't know . . .”

“Think about it, Anthony. Once you can admit what you've done and admit there are no such thing as Realators, then I can take you to see your daughters in their hospital room.”

“Wait . . . hospital room?”

“Well, yes, that's where they are. Like I said, they are still healing.”

“I'm sorry. Totally sorry.”

“What?”

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry for burning down my house and for lying about the Realators and for trying to burn down the neighborhood. I'm sorry for it all.”

“Well, that was sudden.”

“Yeah, totally, but you're a great doctor. You helped me see the truth. Can I see my daughters now in their hospital room?”

“Yes, but it'll be a couple of days. I have to make all the arrangements.”

“A couple of days? So, Sunday then?”

“Probably. Let me check my calendar. Hmm . . . yes, Sunday will work.”

“Wonderful. Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much.”

“You can speak to them,” Dr. Chalmers said. “Just be calm about it.”

I barely heard him, I was so overjoyed. There, finally, a TV.

“Huh? Oh, right,” I said. “Hey, girls.”

“Heh, Duddee,” they said. Or I think they did. Hard to tell with the bandages.

“Where's the remote?” I asked.

“I'm sorry?” Dr. Chalmers replied.

“The remote,” I said. “For the TV. The Super Bowl is on and I always watch the Super Bowl with my girls.”

“Yes, well, it's right here,” he said as he picked up the remote from a bedside table and handed it to me. “But we can't stay . . . very . . . what are those out there?”

He walked away from me and over to the window. I sorta looked, but didn't really since the—well, the Super Bowl.

“Duddee?” Allison mumbled.

“Hold on, baby, Daddy's finding the game,” I said as I clicked through the channels.

“Duddee, wuz dat?”

“Huh, baby?” I asked, but didn't really. I mean, I asked, but it was more of a reflex. I was too busy flipping through the channels. “What the hell is all this crap? Where's the damn game?”

“Reports are coming in that balloons have started to appear on every piece of property in the country,” an anchorwoman said as I finally stopped looking for the game.

“Oh, God, Anthony,” Dr. Chalmers said from the window. “You . . . you . . . the Realators.”

“That's not all, Diane,” an anchorman said. “There are reports that everywhere you go, the smell of cookies is so overpowering that health officials are asking that those with bronchial issues stay inside.”

“I sure do love cookies, Ted.”

“Me too, Diane. Oh, wait, our producer is saying there is a new development . . . I'm sorry, Larry, but that can't be right . . . No, no, I understand.”

“Oh my.”

“Oh my, indeed, Diane. Folks, we are now receiving reports that there is something now blocking the moon.”

“But it's daytime, Ted.”

“Oh, Diane, you silly woman, the moon can show up during the day.”

“Oh, huh. Well, learn something new every—well—day. Ha ha ha ha.”

“Let's go to our reporter in the field, Tamara Gutierrez. Tamara?”

“Thank you, Ted. It appears there are several massive Mylar balloons now bobbing around the moon. And by massive, I mean massive. I have here a local expert. Can you tell us more about these types of balloons?”

“Uh, well, I just fill up normal-sized ones at the Rite Aid. I don't really know about—”

“Anthony? What do we do?” Dr. Chalmers asked as he rushed to me, grabbed the remote from my hand, and turned off the TV.

“Hey!” I replied.

“You . . . you were right, Anthony. The Realators. I see them. Down in the parking lot with their fistfuls of balloons and plates of cookies. They are hideous. What do we do?”

I walked to the window and looked down at the parking lot four stories below.

“Huh,” I said. “I've never actually seen a Realator before.”

“What?” Dr. Chalmers exclaimed.

“Yeah, I only dealt with my neighbors,” I replied. “Boy, you're right, they are pretty hideous. Yuck.”

“Anthony! You are the only one that knows what is going on!” Dr. Chalmers screeched.

I grabbed him by the shoulders and slapped him once, twice, three times. Then four times because I like symmetry.

“Get it together, Doctor,” I said. I smiled at my girls. “Hang tight, girls. Daddy has work to do!”

“Work? What work?” Dr. Chalmers asked, his eyes teary and wild.

“Well, first, we go to every room and save the TVs,” I stated. “But if that doesn't work then we find the best team of lawyers we can. If the lawyers haven't been taken over yet, that is. I'm sure the Realators have already gotten to the real estate lawyers by now, at least. Maybe the contract lawyers are still free.”

“Lawyers?” Dr. Chalmers cried. “Have you lost your mind? What do we need lawyers for?”

“This time I'm ready,” I said as I ran out into the hall. “This time there will be a rider! A RIDER FOR THE EARTH! A RIDER FOR OUR TVs, FOR THE SUPER BOWL, FOR OUR VERY LIVES! But mostly for the Super Bowl and TVs.”

“Buh, Dudee!”

“Buh-buh!”

“Bye, girls! Don't be afraid! I'll be back with a rider! TO THE LAWYERS!”

It had been four minutes since I'd thought about the dead girl at the party.

Four minutes and about ten seconds if you count the tone-deaf riffs Ben and I attempted after the song was done.

Then he looked at me, smiled, and ruined it. Reminding me that he was, in fact, trying to distract me from the dead girl while simultaneously reminding me that nothing could
really
distract me from the dead girl.

That was the pesky thing about dead girls. They were impossible to forget.

Less than forty-eight hours earlier she had been slumped at my feet, her thick blood pooling onto the sticky dance floor between us as her life poured from the smoky bullet hole burrowed into her toned tummy. Her body shook and shuddered as the stampede of screaming partygoers rushed toward the exit, trampling her beautiful salmon-colored dress. I stood beside her, speckled in her blood and still. My scream was stuck like a gumdrop in my throat, my feet frozen in place.

“Are you okay?” Ben looked at me uncomfortably from where he sat behind the wheel of his small sedan. He spoke in that same reluctant tone he had when I showed up at his apartment that night covered in her blood. Like he wasn't sure if the title of “sort-of ex-fiancé” made him qualified to deal with dead girls and blood stains. Drunk, midsex proposals make for a tenuous kind of commitment.

The night I went to the club, Ben and I were on a break. I'd found a phone number for Katie-with-a-heart-over-the-“i” buried in one of his pockets and listened to him stammer out an epically weak explanation about how it got there. They weren't his pants or they weren't his pockets, he didn't even know his pants had pockets.

“Drink,” a coworker I'd confided in said the minute we got to the club. She placed the tequila shot in my hand and watched me throw it back. She barely gave it time to burn its way down before handing me another.

Maybe if I hadn't been drowning in tequila when the dead girl was shot, I would have had the good sense to run. Instead, I stared down at her in a sort of dreamlike fog, not entirely sure she, or even I, was real.

“Tiff, are you okay?” Ben asked again. He placed his hand hesitantly on my thigh. We hadn't exactly gotten back together. The last time we spoke I was a blubbery mess. Spouting mournful Sara Bareilles lyrics in one breath and Beyoncé-like revenge predictions in the other.

“I guess that's a dumb question.” His dark brows furrowed, squinting his brown eyes. He'd been choosing his words gingerly for the whole ride as if at any moment I'd say, “I completely forgot you were an asshole,” and leave him on the side of the highway.

I placed my hand on his and managed a small smile. “It's not dumb. I'm just not entirely sure of the answer. One minute, I'm laughing and the next . . .”

“I know.”

“This is the most depressing road trip ever,” I said, frowning.

“Not true. We could be listening to Celine Dion and playing with razor blades.”

I laughed. “Good point.”

He smiled and then looked at me a little longer than was driver safe. His face grew serious. “I'm just sorry you were there.”

I looked out the window and began biting hard on the inside of my cheek, a nervous habit I'd picked up from my mother. I bit a little too deeply and tasted blood on my tongue.

He continued, “You shouldn't have even been there. After everything that happened with your parents. After everything that happened with us . . .”

I winced. “This didn't have anything to do with my parents or what happened between us.” My tone was a little harsher than I intended. The only thing the dead girl had in common with my parents is that they were all dead. As far as Katie-with-a-heart-over-the-“i,” she might as well have been dead, too.

“I just meant . . .”

“I know,” I said softening. “I just don't want to talk about it. Any of it.”

I played with the tips of his fingers, lifting them one by one and watching them fall back against my leg. “I'll be okay.”

He laced his fingers between mine and squeezed, his face collapsing in relief.

I looked over at the Maps app, shining bright from his iPhone. Less than two hours until we arrived at the “reclusive oasis in Western New York State, far from the hustle and bustle of fast-paced city life.” Well, at least according to the Living Social ad. Maybe if we drove fast enough we could outrun all the memories, especially the cold, dead one still lying at my feet.

“Where are we?” The jolt of the car stopping startled me awake. I sat up and looked at Ben who placed the car in park. I didn't even remember falling asleep.

“Bathroom,” he said.

“Here?” I looked out the window. We had pulled into a parking spot adjacent to a gas station convenience store, surrounded on either side by overgrown wild bushes and dense trees. It looked like it was covered in a haze of dust. Remnants of the station's name were peeling from a long, tattered signpost and blades of grass were growing from the cracks in the asphalt. A neon sign flashed the word
OPEN
again and again on the door. I could hear the buzzing from inside the car.