Ashton Memorial (34 page)

“What's up there?” she
said, feeling awkward as she broke the silence.

Ella looked, then resumed
staring at the bears. “There's a big hill on the other side of this
wall.” Her voice was quiet and flat. “The ladder goes to the top.
Zookeepers use it as a shortcut sometimes.”

Maylee nodded and fell silent.

Ella turned and looked at
Maylee. She smiled. “Hey, cheer up, it's Wednesday.”

Maylee blinked.
“Huh?”

Ella shrugged. “I dunno.
That's just something I say when Lori's upset. I say whatever day
of the week it is, then I say cheer up because of it.”

“Does it work?”

“Nope,” said Ella, shaking
her head.

Maylee chuckled. Then she
gasped. “Wait, did you say Wednesday?”

Ella frowned. “Yeah.
Why?”

“Shit,” said Maylee,
shaking her head. “Today was my birthday. I completely
forgot.”

Ella gasped and smiled.
“Cool! How old are you now?”

“Fifteen,” said Maylee,
feeling weird saying it. She knew the significance of the date to
her mother. It hung over her like a threat for years.

Ella clapped her hands.
“Double cool. Like me! You know what you need?”

“What?”

“A party!” said Ella, then
she pushed past Maylee to hurry into the alcove. “Wait
here!”

Maylee turned to watch as Ella looked
hurriedly around the alcove. She found something and rushed over to
pick it up. She knelt and Maylee saw she held a small piece of
white rock.

“Here,” said Ella, waving
for her to come over. “Sit, sit.”

Maylee walked over and sat on the ground
across from Ella. Ella leaned forward and scraped the rock across
the concrete, leaving a jagged white line.

She drew a large, misshapen
circle on the ground, then smiled up at Maylee. “This is your
cake.” Then she leaned forward and drew a rectangle next to it.
“And this is the ice cream.”

Maylee chuckled. “You
shouldn't have gone to all this trouble.”

“Don't worry about it,”
said Ella, smiling. “Nothing but the best for your party.” She sat
back and placed the rock on the ground. She made a big show of
clearing her throat. Then she started singing.

“Happy birthday to you,”
she sang.

“I belong in a zoo?” said
Maylee, raising her hands to indicate their
surroundings.

Ella stopped singing and
laughed. “You don't look like a monkey, though.”

Maylee nodded. “At this
point, though, I bet I smell like one.”

They both laughed.

“Happy birthday, Maylee,”
said Ella.

“Thank you,” said
Maylee.

Fourteen

Angie and Dalton walked slowly, keeping a
lookout for corpses. Angie felt ridiculous, still clutching the
bright yellow hunk of wood that was once an arrow. But she needed a
weapon. She couldn't be caught off guard again. The rain picked up
around them. It was cold, but Angie scarcely noticed any more. She
felt like the wet, cold misery was becoming a part of her. Dalton
shuddered next to her. She had to get him shelter and warmth.
Something better than storage sheds and public restrooms.

They rounded a corner and
saw a small building across a large walkway.
Communications Office: Employees Only
, read a sign next to it.

“There it is!” yelled
Dalton, pointing.

Angie sighed, relief
flooding her. “Yep, buddy. There it is.”

“Come on!” said Dalton,
running forward.

“Wait!” said Angie. “We
need to be careful.”

Then Dalton screamed as a corpse stumbled
from behind a nearby tree and closed its arms around him. It was a
thin woman with most of her clothes dried and rotted away. She
gripped Dalton with thin, leathery arms and hissed through her
taut, papery throat. The tendons in her neck worked as she bent in
to bite.

“Dalton!” yelled Angie,
running forward with the arrow. Dalton screamed, trying to pull
away.

“Duck!” yelled Angie when
she reached him. Dalton did the best he could and Angie whipped the
wood over his head, missing him by inches, and slammed into the
woman's face. The woman let go and staggered back, hissing and
groaning as yellow teeth fell from her mouth.

“Get your own kid, bitch,”
said Angie, stepping closer to the woman and slamming the point of
the arrow into her eye. The wood was splintered and jagged, and one
thin splinter was long and sturdy enough to bury itself deep in the
woman's skull. The woman let out a long, low moan, then slumped to
the ground in front of Angie.

“That's pretty satisfying,”
said Angie. “I see why your sister likes beating these things so
much.”

“You think Maylee's
inside?” said Dalton, looking warily down at the corpse, but his
voice full of excitement.

“God I hope so,” said
Angie. “Let's go see.”

They slowly walked to the building, looking
side to side as they went. Angie could hear, or imagined she could
hear, faint and far off groaning, but she couldn't be sure. No
corpses emerged to attack and they made their way to the building
in relative peace.

“Gross,” said Dalton,
stopping on the metallic stairs leading up to the office. He looked
up and Angie followed his gaze.

A dead zookeeper, tranquilizer dart embedded
in his forehead, was hanging by the neck from a tree in front of
the door. He'd clearly been dead for days and the rain had sped up
his rotting. His skin was slimy and gray and the smell made Angie
back up a step.

“Yeah,” said Angie, pulling
her shirt up to her nose. “Just cover your nose and we'll get
inside. Okay, baby?”

Dalton nodded and walked up the stairs.
Angie followed, doing her best to ignore the corpse and the slow
creaking noise the branch made as it rocked back and forth in the
rain.

Dalton reached the door first but looked too
scared to knock. Angie guessed what he was thinking. They'd taken
days to get here. Anything could have happened in that time.
Anything could be behind that door. The rotting body hanging from
the tree did little to make Angie feel better.

Angie shook the feeling off and, reaching
out over Dalton's head, knocked on the door.

Angie heard movement inside and her back
tensed. Then she heard voices and she felt slightly better. At
least it wasn't corpses moving in there. But it bothered her that
she didn't recognize the voices. It sounded like a man and woman.
Young, too.

The door opened and a young
man with round glasses peered out. He eyed Angie warily. “Who are
you?”

Angie wanted to push the
man aside. Get Dalton inside and warm. She forced herself to stay
civil. “I'm Angie Land and this is my son, Dalton. Is there anyone
else here? A fourteen-,
fifteen
-year-old girl and a man
about my age? They would be...”

“We don't have any food!” yelled a woman's voice
from behind the young man. Then the woman walked into view. Her
arms were crossed and she looked warily past the young man at
Angie. Angie noticed both of them were wearing zookeeper uniforms.
She tensed, remembering the Zoo Bites, but she forced herself not
to show it.

“Just shut the door,
Caleb,” said the young woman.

“Just let me deal with it,
Shelley,” said the young man, apparently named Caleb. “She's right
though, lady, we don't have any food.”

“You can't trust these
people!” said Shelley. “They're all crazy. Just shut the
door!”

Angie cleared her throat,
forcing herself to smile. “Look, we were told to come here. Some
girl named Ella?”

“Ella?” said Caleb, opening
the door wider and leaning out. “Where is she? What have you people
done with Ella?”

Angie leaned back, a little
surprised by Caleb's intensity. The branch behind her creaked as
the body swung back and forth. “What?” she said. “We don't have
her. She told us...”

Caleb looked her up and
down. There was a desperate craziness in his eyes Angie didn't
like. “Look, lady. I'm sorry we don't have food. I'm sorry we
locked you all in here.”

“Just shut the door Caleb!”
yelled Shelley.

Caleb ignored her. “I'm
sorry for all of that. Just give us Ella back, please.”

The branch behind her
creaked as Angie stared at Caleb and Shelley. “Look, I told you. We
don't have her. And no one locked us in anywhere. We got here two
nights ago. Ella helped us get inside.”

Shelly's eyes grew wide and
she pointed at Angie. “They're the ones that let those things
inside! Shut the door!”

Caleb frowned at Angie, his
eyes narrowing behind the round glasses. “Is that true?”

“Screw this,” said Angie.
She grabbed the door and shoved it inward, pushing Caleb back in
the process. She and Dalton walked inside as Caleb and Shelley
backed away like frightened animals. The room stunk of sweat and
desperation.

“Get out!” yelled Shelley,
pointing at the door.

“What's your problem,
chickie?” said Angie, feeling very sick of this shit.

Caleb let out a long sigh
and adjusted his glasses on his face. “Look, let's all just calm
down for a moment.”

Shelley ignored him and stepped toward Angie. “My
problem? All you guest fuckers are crazy. That's my problem. The
whole world’s gone crazy. There's one too. Oh, and corpses are
eating people! Let's not forget that one. The only person I can
trust is Caleb and he won't shut the fucking door!”

Shelley pushed past Angie
and walked to the door. She held it open wide and gestured out of
it. “Now leave, please!”

A groaning corpse stumbled into the doorway
and grabbed Shelley. She screamed. The corpse, a bloated old man
with thick slimy strips of skin hanging from his head, moved in to
bite. The slimy strips of his flesh brushed across Shelly's face
and she shrieked, sounding like she was losing her mind.

“Shelley!” yelled Caleb,
moving forward to help.

“Shit,” said Angie, putting
Dalton behind her and rushing forward. She arrived first and
grabbed the corpse by the forehead. She pushed back, recoiling
inside at the feel of the corpse's slimy skin.

Caleb reached Shelley and grabbed her arms.
He pulled her toward him, out of the corpse's grip. The bloated man
gurgled and bit at Angie's forearm.

“Someone wanna give me a
hand with this?” yelled Angie, pushing against the corpse as he bit
and grabbed at her.

“Here!” said Dalton,
running up and putting a pair of pliers into her hand.

“Where'd you find those?”
said Angie, struggling with the corpse.

“Drawer.”

“Okay. Thanks honey, now
stay out of the way.”

Dalton nodded and ran farther back into the
room, away from the corpse.

Angie brought the pliers up and shoved the
point into the corpse's eye. The corpse groaned and fell back,
working its jaws limply. Angie grabbed both handles of the pliers
and shoved them deeper into the eye socket of the corpse. She
wrenched the pliers open, hearing bone crack and something squelch.
The corpse gurgled and slumped to the floor, its head inside the
door and the rest of its body outside on the porch. Angie kicked
the corpse's head outside and shut the door.

She turned. Dalton stood against the wall,
looking warily at the door. Caleb stood next to Shelley. Shelley
stood, arms crossed and looking shaken, staring at Angie.

“Thank you,” said Shelley.
“Now please leave.”

“What?” said
Angie.

Caleb put a hand on her
shoulder. “Now, wait a second, honey.”

Shelley pulled away and
glared at him. “Don't you honey me! You can't trust these
people!”

“Who are you even talking
about?” said Caleb. “Do you even know any more?”

“Her!” yelled Shelley,
pointing at Angie. “Them! Everyone! And don't you dare give me your
college bullshit like you're some goddamned psychiatrist! You study
animals, Caleb. Stupid animals! Not me!”

“Okay, sweetie,” said
Caleb, an edge creeping into his voice. “You need to calm
down.”

“No,” said Shelley, “what I
need to do is get the fuck out of this place! I hate this fucking
zoo! I only work here because of you! I don't even like animals all
that fucking much!”

Caleb stared at her. “You
think I don't realize that? You think I haven't thought about how
easy it would be to leave you? How easy it would be to go out with
any of the girls at school? Someone with my interests? Someone more
at my level?”

Shelley pulled back as if
she'd been struck. “You motherfucker.”

“Wait,” said Caleb, turning
red. “Wait, that came out wrong.”

“Fuck it did,” said
Shelley. She stomped to the door, flung it open and ran
outside.

“Shelley!” yelled Caleb,
following her.

Angie watched them go. She
stood, dumbfounded, staring at the door for a moment. “Well shit,”
she said.

“Shit,” repeated
Dalton.

“Watch your mouth,” said
Angie, a little shocked. She'd never heard Dalton swear. Maylee,
all the time. Never Dalton.