INFECtIOUS (15 page)

"No,"
Matt says curtly.

"But—"
Ellen starts to speak and when Jose puts his arm around her she dissolves into
a fresh round of tears.

Thomas wraps
Ellen's tiny waist in a tight hug and then gives an equally tender embrace to
Jose. Thomas' normally cheerful face is distorted in a pinched mask of
confusion and grief. He loves his new parents. But his loyalties to his brother
are ingrained. He's too young to be faced with such a big decision. Really,
there isn't a decision being offered to him. Jose and Ellen aren't refusing
Matt. They've begged and pleaded, but begrudgingly submitting to Matt's right
to Thomas. Thomas is just rolling with the punches.
 

"I'll be
back," Thomas says resolutely to Ellen. "I'm sure God is doing this
for a good reason." Then turning to his big brother he asks with such
innocence, "We can come visit, can't we Matt?"

"We have to
go now bud," Matt says avoiding Thomas' question.

"God will
bring me back again." Thomas says to Ellen, looking up into her eyes with
steadfast faith.

Thomas looks at
each of us one more time and his patented smile reclaims
it's
rightful place on his cherubic cheeks. He has
such childlike faith. Something we are all supposed to carry. We aren't ever
supposed to lose the faith that comes so easily to a child—faith mixed with
imagination and devoid of life's long history of disappointments.
 
Faced with such a hard situation, Thomas just
assumes that God has a great plan and that it will all work out. He's more
faithful than me. I'm learning a lot about myself this week—and I'm not proud
of what I'm finding.

"Thanks
again. You've all been great." Matt nods a final goodbye to Aunty, Jose,
and Ellen. I keep my wet eyes trained on his face but he doesn't look at me
again. I know I was awful to him in the beginning, but I thought maybe we were
over that. I guess he really doesn't like me. I know I totally deserve it.

As they turn and
walk down the front walk towards the street, Aunty calls to Thomas who is
following after Matt but glancing back at us every step or two, "Thomas,
read your Bible and trust Jesus. We'll all be together again real soon. It's
not long now. Take care of Matt. We'll be praying." The last part she
yells loudly into the wind as they reach the street and start to blur in the
fuzzy white static of the falling snow. We stand in the cold and watch as they
turn left down the road towards the gate. I can't seem to stop crying. Aunty
puts her arm around me to comfort me as they disappear around the bend.

As we step back
inside, I notice the coat Aunty got for Matt hanging over a chair by the door.
I compulsively grab it and dash back out into the falling snow. He should have
it. It's freezing out here! I'll say I'm sorry, too. I desperately need to say
I'm sorry for the way I treated him. I run down the sidewalk and Aunty calls
after me to be careful. It should be easy to catch them since I'm running; but,
as I round the bend and see the gate straight ahead, they are gone. They've vanished.
I run the distance to the North gate and ask, out of breath, if the guards have
seen them and let them through. They haven't. He must have gone out the way he
came in. And I don't know where that could be. They're gone.

Matt is gone.

I didn't get to
apologize. Devastation sticks a knife and fork into my chest and starts to
feast.

The Lesser Of Two Evils

Three of the
scariest, craziest, most emotionally full days of my life have turned the
corner into a long, quiet, dull, depressing week. It's Saturday now. Matt and
Thomas left on Wednesday. I've spent the last three days trying to feel normal
and never achieving it. I've gone to work, but at work I see the Elders and
they ask me how I'm feeling and if I've thought of any other valuable
information about my attacker.
 

The "Outlet
Mall Stalker" is the name I've given him.
 

It would make a
good headline if we had a newspaper. We don't—but apparently we don't need one.
Everyone has heard about what happened. Everyone I pass looks sympathetically
at me. Like I'm dying of cancer and don't have long to live. Maybe they're
right. If the scientists want me, what will stop them? I can't fathom a life
where I never leave the compound again. At some point I will step out of these
gates again, maybe just to end the incessant questions and fears that are
plaguing me. I picture myself walking out and waving my arms and yelling at the
sky, "Here I am, come and get me!"
 

Tim Markowitz
stopped by the Inn on Wednesday evening after Matt and Thomas left. Apparently
his only reason for coming was to say "Hi" and check on me. He
brought me some cookie cutters he found somewhere—he said where but I can't
remember—to cheer me up.

Aunty had a
field day with that.

I think I
thanked him but I don't think I looked very thankful. And I definitely didn't
look interested. I excused myself and went to my room hoping he'd take the hint
and leave. I'm sure they talked about me as soon as I left. Aunty probably told
him I was still distraught about the attack or something. When I came back out
of my room an hour later he was still visiting with Aunty in the Parlor. It was
such a nightmare. I just wanted to be left alone to cry about my horrible life.
Tim stayed for one more cup of tea and some cookies before finally heeding the
subliminal messages I had been screaming at him from inside my head.

"Leave!"

"I can't stand you!"

"You are totally gross!"

"Go away!"

Aunty kept
shooting me dirty looks and motioning at me to smile whenever Tim wasn't looking.
For one reason or another he left looking more interested and confident than
normal. Inconceivable because I couldn't be making it more clear that I'm not
interested.

I can't quit
thinking about Matt. I hate that I realized what a great person he was after
two days of treating him with loathing indifference. No, I treated him worse
than that. It was more like outright hatred. I wish I could have a do-over. I
would be so much kinder. I'd ask him about himself and try to get to know him.
I'm not so full of myself that I think it would've mattered or that he would've
stayed. I just think maybe I wouldn't hate myself so much. And maybe he
would've looked at me and said, "Goodbye." That would've been nice.

I can't fall
asleep at night. I toss and turn and worry and, when I do manage to sleep, I
have horrible dreams. Ellen gave me more of her homemade chamomile tea to help
me sleep. It doesn't seem to help. I've gone to visit Ellen twice in the last
of couple of days. Even though we had only spoken a few times in the last year,
I suddenly feel close to her because of our mutual loss. She has cried during
both of our visits. She's so worried about Thomas and misses him so much. I
think she thinks I'm real sad about losing Thomas too, since he stayed with us
a few days. I am sad about him leaving, of course I am—but really
it's
Matt I can't stop thinking about.

I haven't told
anyone. They would probably be appalled. Aunty might have guessed, but we
haven't talked about it and I've been avoiding deep conversations. Ellen would
never guess my true feelings, but she was there that day with Matt and saw that
he had good qualities. So I feel like she's the only person who ever would
understand. At least more than the others would.

I know it's
stupid. What do I know about him?
Very little.
He's a
zombie who loves his little brother. He is handsome. He has a good sense of
humor. His green eyes are mesmerizing. That's not enough information to form
such an attachment is it? I'm sure there are a bunch of classic psychological
things playing into this.

Such as: The
attack at the outlets has left me feeling mortal and vulnerable. I'm trying to
make up a relationship to feel secure.
 

Or: I've bonded
with someone who reminds me of my attacker like that Stockholm
Syndrome
thing.
 

These reasons
make more sense to me than actually falling in love with the first zombie boy
I've spent a total of two days with.
 

I haven't
devoted myself in at least a week and I
know
that's a big part of my deteriorating mental state. I keep meaning to. I know
it would make everything better but for one reason or another something else
comes up or I doze off.
Whatever.
I am pretty
un-devoted right now. I've heard of people losing their healing and their
faith. I won't let it get that bad. I just need to stop moping. The only
solution I can come up with for the moping is napping.

A Doodle Makes Me Cry

The doorbell
wakes me and I groan in frustration. It took forever for me to fall asleep and
it feels like that was just a moment ago. I pull the covers over my head. I'm
sure Aunty will take care of whoever it is. It rings again a minute later.
And again.

Ugh!

I crawl out from
under my warm, velvety pink comforter and put on some old flip-flops. A quick
check in the mirror shows that my hair is still somewhat in place. I rub my
cheeks and chew on a dry mint leaf. I don't want whoever is at the door to know
I was napping in the middle of the day. I know that people nap and there's
nothing to be embarrassed about. It's a privacy thing—it's no one's business
but my own if want to nap. The doorbell rings a fourth time and I hurry to the
front of the house a little irritated. It better not be Tim again. I think my
good manners have run out.
 

Through the
curlicued
leaded glass pattern of the front door, I see my
friend Harmony. I've been avoiding her, too. She already stopped by once this
week and I told Aunty to apologize for me, I had a bad headache. It wasn't
really that bad, but I just don't know what to say to her. She'll probably want
all the details of what happened. I don't know how to talk about myself. I like
to go fix other people's problems. Honestly, other than the post-apocalyptic
life I'm stuck with and the traumatizing childhood memories, I rarely have any
serious problems of my own.

At least I still
have my sense of humor.

I try to look
happy to see her as I unlock the door and invite her in. She looks shy and
uncomfortable as she walks into the
foyer,
her tall,
bony frame slumped over in bad posture. That's just her usual way though—humble
and unassuming. She's wispy and thin with long wavy red hair and gray eyes. She
would look like a ballerina if she carried herself with more confidence and
better posture. She doesn't care about fashion, but somehow everything she
wears looks good on her. She's a year younger than me, just 15, but she is
several inches taller. I think her best feature is her lips. I wish I had lips
like hers. They are full and beautiful and when she smiles, she's gorgeous. I
shut and lock the door behind her and she stands there for a second and then
reaches out and gives me a quick hug. We don't usually hug. I wish so badly
that things could at least be normal with her.
 

"I'm
fine," I say with a shrug and a smile, easing out of her skinny arms.
"Sorry, I guess I've been hiding."

"I know. I
know you don't want to talk about it. You don't have to okay? Just let me come
over and we'll act like everything's normal." She puts her hands up in a
non-threatening, "I surrender" gesture.

Wow, the girl
knows me well.
 

"My mom
sent you some stuff. Homemade chocolate to cheer you up and some papers she
wants you to look over."
 

Harmony's mom,
Sherry, is fun to work for and always extra nice to me. The chocolates are just
one example of the many ways she dotes on me. The papers are probably for next
week's lesson. Because she's the teacher for our age group, I often see the
lessons beforehand, help put them together, and then hear them again in my
Sunday morning class with the other teens.

"So—show me
what you got!" Harmony says enthusiastically, referring to my fated
shopping trip. "Did you bring me anything?"
 

"Yeah, I
did," I am smiling already. "It's in my room."
  

I model
everything I got and Harmony does the best friend thing and tells me it all
looks fantastic on me. I brought her a bunch of things and she blushes with
each new thing I hand to her. She genuinely would've been okay if I hadn't
brought her anything. If I had gotten tons of new things and nothing for her, I
don't think she would have been anything but happy for me. She seems
overwhelmed with all the new clothes; and, when I show her the matching cross
necklaces I got for us, she gets teary. Making her so happy is helping me feel
good again. Who needs a boy anyways? If we don't have much time left here,
there's no point in crushes. No time for dating when
dating's
main goal is marriage. I just need to get back into my regular groove and that
crazy couple of days with Matt will eventually fade into a bitter-sweet
memory.
 

Harmony and I
hang out all afternoon. I, of course, end up telling her every scary detail of
our trip. It feels better this time, cleansing somehow, the second time I tell
it. I trust her with my life and I know she's not weighing my words in light of
how they'll affect the community—unlike the Elders. She cares about me. I
somberly tell her about the picture of me that we found in the zombie's hand.
She is horrified when I tell her what Aunty concluded about Pravda allowing me
to get away. We brainstorm for awhile about what it could mean.

"Show me
the shoes," she says with a derisive tone that is only
unoffensive
because we are best friends.

I haul them out
of the back of the closet and notice the bags of toys we got for Thomas but
never delivered. It's for the best that he didn't see the toys. He would've had
to leave them all behind. It would've only been more disappointment for him. My
heart has that stabbing pain again.

I model the
goofy shoes and let down my pride and laugh with her and let her make fun of
me. When we're done giggling, I ask my closest friend the question that's been
plaguing me all week, "Why me? What makes me special from all the other
people here? I'm not important to the community, not unique in anyway."

"Of course
you are important!" Harmony says, her full lips in a pout—defending me.
"Everyone here is important!"
 

Her enthusiastic
encouragement makes me think of a line from a kiddy superhero movie we watched
once at the U.R. The mom says to her superhero son, "Everyone is special."
He in turn mumbles, "Which is another way of saying no one is." I
remember thinking that line was clever. We talked about it after the movie. We
are all unique and special in God's eyes,
yadda
yadda
. But there's a ring of truth there. If everyone is special,
then really no one is
special
, you
know?

"Who
could've taken the picture?" I have wracked my brain for an answer all
week.
 

I try, again, to
remember that sunny afternoon. What had I gone out on the porch for? It dawns
on me suddenly—Harmony brought the clue I needed.

"The
doorbell!
Someone had rung the bell and I had been napping! I was hoping
Aunty would answer it. When it rang a second time I had jumped up and fixed my
hair real quick; but, by the time I got outside, no one was there. I walked
down the side of the porch to look for whoever I had missed but didn't see
anyone! It wasn't a big deal so I had forgotten all about it! I just figured I
had taken too long to answer the door and whoever it was left thinking we
weren't home!"
 

It's so obvious
now that it had been a set up. Harmony is sitting across from me on my bed and
her gray eyes are huge. She stares at me with concern as we realize we've come
across a very important clue. I haven't gotten to the Matt part of the story
yet. I decide to tell it because of Matt's secret way in. It might be being
used by someone other than Matt. I quickly fill her in about his time here,
leaving out the gambit of feelings I ran through over those three crazy
days.
 

"The key
thing is that I'm certain he came and went from the community through some
secret way in that he found," I sum up after telling her that he had
disappeared around the bend and the guards confirmed he hadn't left through the
gate. This is scary news to her too. The gate is the only thing that helps us
feel
safe living so close to our hostile neighbors.
 

"Is it
possible some other zombie found the same way in? Are you really sure Matt
doesn't have something to do with it?" she asks.
 

Just like the
elders had.
 

"It seems
way too coincidental to me," she continues reasoning, "him showing up
within an hour of your, uh, attack. I bet you were so scared to see him
standing there at your back door."
 

"I guess I
was a little scared."

Don't judge me
for leaving out my terror. I'm not good at being vulnerable.
 

"So then,
maybe it isn't anyone we know at all," she says hopefully.
 

We both want
this theory to be true. While it's scary to think that zombies can come and go
from our community unnoticed,
it's
worse trying to
imagine that one of the Living would do this. Really it's impossible. If one of
the Living was working with zombie scientists to hurt me, they'd have to be
living out of fellowship and they'd risk losing their healing. The disease
coming back would be a dead giveaway. Surely someone in the community would've
noticed and reported it to the elders.

"So what
was it like, being around him? He was right upstairs while you slept?" she
asks looking horrified.

"It
was—weird."

I just can't
talk about him with her. How would I explain all the confusing feelings?
 
That night, falling asleep I had been so mad
and scared and then I'd had that horrible dream, reliving the awful moments in
the car. But the next day, everything changed. I found him more and more
fascinating. I found myself liking him. When he left, it was hard to believe
how much of a
turn around
I had done in so short a
time. It physically hurts me in my chest when I think of him. My heart actually
aches.

Harmony and I
are both quiet, lost in our own thoughts. All the talk about Matt brings that
hard day when he left back to me with clarity. I keep thinking the memories
will fade but they only get stronger.

I see it all
again—Aunty and I left Ellen and Jose so they could cry and console each other
in peace. We walked home through the snow in tear filled silence, me still
holding Matt's coat. I'm sure Aunty was thinking of others—praying for Thomas'
safety, praying for Matt's soul, praying for comfort for Jose and Ellen. I was
lost in my own self-centered thoughts. I wanted Matt to come back. I at least
wanted a chance to apologize. Let's be honest, I wanted him to stay with us,
find Life, and ideally marry me next week.

Halfway home I
realized that no one had been up in his room yet. I needed to go up there alone.
Maybe he could have liked me? There was all that winking. Oh, I missed the
winking. Maybe he had left something behind? I was suddenly desperate to get in
there. I quickened my pace without realizing it, filled with the desperate hope
of finding something. Aunty assumed I was afraid to be outside and that I was
hurrying home to safety. I let her think that, it had been true just the day
before.

When we got back
to the Inn, I had my speech ready. I told her I was ashamed of my bad
attitudes—which of course I was—and that I was so thankful for her and her
patience—once again totally true—and that to thank her I wanted to clean the
dirty guest rooms by myself. So that she could have a break. This part was less
truthful. But she bought it and, really, she did seem exhausted.

I grabbed some
cleaning supplies and practically flew up the stairs. He had been in guest room
number one. A small,
more manly
room at the top of the
stairs.
It's
golden walls makes it feel sunny and
inviting on the cloudiest days. Someone painted an African mural on one of the
walls years ago—a serene scene of a boat on a river with silhouettes of trees
and a sunset on the horizon.

The other unique
thing in the room is the bathroom. It is hidden behind a bookcase door. I
glanced around the room and decided to clean the bathroom first. Pulling open
the bookcase door, I found that the bathroom looked completely untouched. At
first glance, it looked as though he hadn't showered or used any of the
towels—they were all folded just the way Aunty and I leave them. Only a closer
inspection proved that he had showered. Then he had wiped down the shower and
refolded and
rehung
the towels perfectly. So he was
not only a funny and endearing zombie, he was also neat as a pin. I opened the
shampoo bottle in the shower and breathed in the coconut smell. The smell
brought new lonely tears to my eyes.