Our Undead (51 page)

Margaret:
Billy?

Billy:
Yea?

Margaret:
I want you to know that I care about you a lot and… I
do
love
you.

Billy:
We've been through a lot, Margaret. I've grown to love you
too.

He can sense the sincerity in the tone of her voice, and it
finally sinks in for him to return her affection. His limp, stunned
hand comes to life and compassionately holds Margaret's back. When
she feels him holding her, she smiles brightly in the completely
dark room and holds him even tighter, which in turn causes Billy to
smile. Reaching new levels of comfort with one another, Billy and
Margaret fall asleep within minutes, hand in hand, watched over by
their undead father figure and friend.

GONE MISSING

The thing about waking up
in a room with no windows is that there is no opening for the sun
to pour in and let you know that it's time to wake up. In rooms
like these, it is very easy for one to sleep hours longer than they
originally intended to. This can cause a person to over sleep and
feel just as tired waking up as they did when they laid down to
rest. Fortunately, this is not the case for Margaret. When her eyes
creep open, and she takes her first conscious breath of the day,
she feels well rested, even more so than she did on their nights
spent at the department store. The room glows in a soft light, and
Margaret can tell that the lamplight has been turned back on. She
looks down past her feet, and even though her vision hasn't fully
come back, she finds it odd that she can't see Abe's physique
resting on the chair at the foot of the bed.

She turns her head to the
left to see if Abe may be standing in some other part of the room,
then realizes that not only are they no longer holding hands, Billy
isn't even on the bed with her, and she can't see him anywhere
either. Looking into the middle of the room, she sees nothing at
first, but then she notices an unknown black figure bobbing up and
down near the floor. It appears and then disappears, down to where
the bed hinders her vision. She pushes herself up into a seated
position so that she can see what the bobbing black thing is and is
reminded of the extra weight she now carries in the form of a cast.
It slightly annoys her, but she quickly remembers to be thankful,
especially when she realizes that it's only Billy on the floor
doing push-ups.

She's surprised to find
that he is no longer wearing the white t-shirt and grey gym shorts
that they had been given by Professor Gwen the night before. He's
back in his original outfit, headband and all, going all out in a
set of push-ups. She dare not say anything for fear of interrupting
him. She waits it out, counting as he goes along. He finally stops
twenty-nine push-ups in and hops up to his feet in a flash,
breathing in deeply but controlled. When he looks up and sees
Margaret sitting up straight, he jumps back, startled. Margaret
gets a good chuckle out of it.

Margaret:
Whoa, why so jumpy?!

Billy:
(huffing)
I don't know. I'm
not.

Margaret:
Ha ha. Sorry about that. Good morning.

Billy:
Good morning… Actually, it's almost three o'clock in the
afternoon.

Margaret:
Are you for real?!
Why'd you
let me sleep so long!?

Billy:
Don't worry about it. I only woke up about an hour ago. I
guess we were more tired than we thought.

Margaret:
Seriously. Say, where'd you get those spiffy new
clothes?

Billy:
Uh,
they were just here when I woke up.

He points to the desk, and
laying on top, looking fresh and folded in a neat little pile, are
the clothes that Margaret had been wearing when she and Billy had
first arrived to the Sector. Her pink bandana sits delicately on
the top.

Margaret:
Who-

Billy:
I
have no idea, but I'm thinking the professor.

Margaret:
How sweet of her, but where is-

Billy:
That too, I have no idea, but I'm thinking the professor took
him. I wonder if she's even gotten any sleep.

Margaret:
Those poor doctors… I feel sorry for them, but I can't deny
it… I feel
great…
Minus the cast. It's kind of itching… but other
than that, just great.

Billy:
Ha
ha, I feel good too. It's weird, like, hopeful
even.

Margaret:
Maybe it's our intuition. Maybe something amazing is going to
happen today.

Billy:
I
hope you're right.

Margaret:
I should get changed.

Billy:
Oh,
okay. I'll just be right outside the door.

As Margaret begins to get
herself out from under the sheets to sit on the side of the bed,
Billy starts for the door and reaches for the handle.

Margaret:
You don't have to go outside.

He stops and looks at her,
wonderingly.

Margaret:
You can stay. It's fine. I trust you. Plus, you can't just
leave me in here. I'm injured. I might fall over and die or
something, then how big of an ass would you feel like then,
huh?

Billy:
Okay, all right. I'll stay. I'll stay.

Margaret:
Good. Now, can you hand me my clothes,
please?

Billy:
Yea.

Billy hops, skips and jumps
into action, scooping Margaret's freshly washed clothes up off the
professor's office desk and handing them graciously to
her.

Margaret:
Thank you.

Billy:
No
problem.

He stands there watching
her for a moment, her clothes cupped in her arms.

Margaret:
Uhhh….

Confused, Billy wonders
what the problem is. Margaret raises her index finger and twirls it
around in consecutive circles, letting him know that she may be
allowing him to stay inside the room, but he still has to avert his
eyes while she changes. He apologizes promptly and turns his back
to her. Margaret giggles again at his unrefined innocence. She
finds it cute and strangely attractive, how he can be as courageous
as a lion in the face of a thousand zombies, but in front of her,
he acts as timid as a week old lamb. He makes it so easy to forget
that he is only a teenager, the type she thought she had moved on
from. She had forgotten that the night before when she kissed
him.

Margaret has already taken
off her borrowed t-shirt and put back on her white tank-top, right
in the middle of sliding down her gym shorts when Billy starts
talking.

Billy:
Hey, Margaret. I just wanna say… about that kiss last
night.

Margaret:
Yea?

Billy:
I
want you to know that I don't expect us to be dating now, or to be
anything more than what we were before.

Margaret:
Oh?

Billy:
Not
that I didn't enjoy it because… I
did
. That was my first kiss,
and… it was incredible. I'll remember it forever, and.. I'm glad it
was with you.

He gets a little excited as
he tries to explain himself to her, and his body automatically
turns itself around so that it can face her while it's talking.
Margaret has already changed into her clean panties but is still in
the middle of pulling up her clean black and grey camo pants. She
exclaims when Billy turns around, and he quickly corrects
himself.

Billy:
Sorry sorry sorry. It was just a reflex. I didn't see
anything.

Margaret:
(laughing)
It's okay… Billy, I'm
glad I could be your first kiss. It was a really great kiss for me
too, just to let you know. It wasn't my first, but it was one of my
best, and that's the honest truth.

Billy:
Seriously?!

Margaret:
Ha ha, yes. Trust me. It was… surprisingly very passionate.
Girls like that.

Billy:
Oh…

Margaret:
Billy, are you blushing over there?

Billy:
No…

Margaret:
Hah! I think you are. You can turn around
now.

Billy turns around to face
Margaret who is fully changed and looks the way Billy is used to
seeing her, except that she's squeaky clean and her right pant leg
is a little tight due to the cast. She even has her pink bandana
tied up around her forehead, bangs hanging daintily over the front
of it. Smiling at him, she looks as cute as ever.

Margaret:
I don't want anything to change between us either. To me,
nothing has. All we did was kiss. We both enjoyed it, and we both
don't expect anything more from it each other. Let's just say… if
it happens again, it happens again. No pressure?

Billy:
(sigh)
I'm glad we're on the
same page.

Margaret raises her hand in
invitation and Billy meets her in the middle for a high-five of
understanding. It lasts longer than a regular high-five, with their
hands clasped together, suspended in midair. In both of their
minds, they think about the night before, one last time before
putting it to sleep and moving forward, Margaret thinking about the
chivalry of it all and Billy, the coming-of-age. Slowly, they both
bring their hands down and out from in front of each
other.

Billy:
Uh.. so what do you want to do now?

Margaret:
I wanna know what they're doing with Abe.

Billy:
That's what I thought you'd say. We can wander around this
place, but I have no idea where he is or how we'd get to
him.

Margaret:
Let the adventure continue.

She smiles at him, excited
and eager to do some exploring of this compound that is so
unfamiliar to them. Her forearm crutches lay on the floor beside
the bed from the night before. Billy picks them up and gives them
to her.

<><><>

Billy pokes his head out of
Professor Gwen's room first, making sure the coast is clear for
reasons unknown even to himself. If they're going to get in trouble
for being there, it's gonna happen whether they like it or not.
Especially since he decides to bring his bow and knapsack full of
arrows with him. The best thing they can do is to act as if
everything is normal, just a couple of teenaged government workers
walking the halls. Easy. Simple. Not really. He exits, holding the
door open for Margaret, beginning to think that this may not end
well after all. Hopefully, they can find Gwen quickly. Margaret
comes swinging out on her special crutches.

The hallway is much
brighter than the room and completely barren. Looking both to the
left and right, each path seems to stretch on forever before
hitting any sort of turn.

Margaret:
Maybe we should go this way. That's where we came from when
Professor Gwen dropped us off last night, isn't
it?

Billy:
Yea. Sure, let's go.

Billy starts walking, getting ahead
of Margaret. She looks at the bow hanging from his knapsack and
laughs.

Margaret:
Why are you bringing all of that?

Billy:
I
haven't been separate from my things in weeks, in ever, really. I'm
not gonna just leave them anywhere. The two of us were asleep, and
look what happened. Abe's gone missing. I'm not gonna let that
happen to my stuff.

Margaret:
A little paranoid, aren't we?

Billy:
No.
You'll see… I'll leave my belongings alone when I trust this place
a little more.

Margaret:
Fair enough. All right, wait up.

Twenty minutes of walking
time passes by, and Billy and Margaret still don't seem to be
getting anywhere. All of the corridors look the same. No matter
which turn they choose to make, the scenery always turns out to be
identical. All of the offices and labs are hidden behind resilient
walls of opaque white. It makes for quite a boring walk, but both
travellers try to see it more as peaceful.

Hope springs forth when the
foot traffic in the halls increases. It doesn't go up by much. They
see a few professional looking people, but they are far and few in
between. Most of them are travelling by themselves, and not one of
them look up or pay the teens any mind.