Sadie Walker Is Stranded (24 page)

“Why do
you
want to go see it?” Shane asked, frowning.

“I don’t
want
to, but … we need to figure out what happened to her and how she disappeared.”

“Can I come with?”

I hesitated.

“Let him,” Whelan said. “We won’t let him get too close.”

I ignored him, looking back to Shane. “It’s your choice,” I said, mourning that I couldn’t keep things like this from him forever. He was going to grow up whether I liked it or not. “But you can change your mind if you want to.”

“I’m coming with.”

Isabella had washed up on shore, her clothes ragged, a hole chewed into her neck. It didn’t take a PhD in zoology to see that the teeth marks weren’t made by any animal. They were human and—God help us—small. Shane stared at her for a long time. I didn’t allow him to get close enough to see just how bad it looked.

It took three people to hold Stefano back while Noah and Whelan fished her out of the water. Stefano collapsed into a heap at our feet when they took little Isabella into the cover of the forest. We couldn’t bury her like that, not with her head still attached to her body. I don’t know how they managed it. When Whelan and Noah returned, a rolled tarp swinging between them, Whelan looked shaken to his core.

Helpless, aimless, I took Shane away, down the beach toward the docks. In the distance, I heard the sound of shovels digging into the sand. They might bury her clothes or a keepsake, but nothing of the real Isabella would go in that grave. I hadn’t known her, not at all, but the thought of that empty pink tap-dancing shirt going into the ground made the tears come anyway. Shane nestled down into the sand, immediately tangling his fingers in the lanky strands of seaweed that had washed up on shore. The waves lapped nearby, the tide still relatively low at midmorning. I looked at Shane, at the familiar curls and doughy cheeks and the not-so-familiar adult tilt of his head as he studied the seaweed sliding through his grasp. He always had a strange knack for appearing completely out of place. Here, in a park, in the apartment back in Seattle … It was almost like watching an alien life form study a foreign planet. When his big curious eyes took me in it was as if he were thinking, “Do I know you? Will I ever know you?”

“Hey,” I said, sitting down across from him and removing my shoes. The bandages were starting to itch like crazy. “Those girls … I don’t want you to worry, okay?”

Shane nodded. At least he was listening.

I glanced over his head. Nobody had come looking for us—well, not really. Moritz watched from the log benches at the fire pit, his head resting in his hands and his elbows on his knees. He didn’t so much gaze at us as
through
us. I knew the feeling.

“It’s just a reminder, you know? It’s dangerous everywhere. But at least here we have friends and some food and weapons. That’s pretty good and I’m sure it will get better.” Shane nodded again, but now he was staring at the seaweed again. “I know it’s sad and scary, but we’re all going to get through this. And Teresa hasn’t come back. She could still be alive.”

I didn’t mention that, in the unlikely event Teresa
was
still alive, she had apparently taken up a troublesome habit of chewing on her relatives. Whether she was crazy, a zombie, dead or gone didn’t matter. Shane mattered. At a loss for what else to say, I picked up my own piece of seaweed and shuddered from its gooey, stringy tendrils unraveling against my fingers. The shovel noises up the hill and behind the huts continued, slower now as the diggers grew tired, but drumming out that heavy, hollow beat. Scratching idly at my feet and the fire ant sensation building on the soles I wondered again why Teresa and Isabella had wandered off. Maybe they were sick of beans … or sick of Danielle. Or maybe they didn’t like the arrival of so many strangers.

“She’s not alive.”

At first I thought I’d imagined the voice. But no, Shane had definitely spoken. It had been so long I had forgotten the sound. He frowned, studiously, not with emotion, and continued striping the seaweed into even green ribbons.

“She’s one of those things probably,” Shane added matter-of-factly.

Stop gaping, he’s going to think you’re a mental patient.

“You’re right,” I said slowly. Treating this moment with too much overenthusiasm might put him off the whole vocal communication thing again. “But I still don’t want you to worry.”

“I don’t,” he said with a tiny shrug. He needed to eat more. His little sweatshirt was swallowing him whole. “Are you going to marry Whelan?”

“What?” My voice came out in one ridiculous squeak. “What? No.”

I almost added that it was none of his business and that nobody got married anymore and that if they did it was like spitting in luck’s face and just asking for star-crossed tragedy, but he didn’t really need to hear those things. Shit, if he talked less like an adult I’d actually remember to treat him like a kid. “I’ve got you, little man. That’s all I need.”

Apparently satisfied, or perhaps unimpressed, Shane shook out his hands and watched the strings of sandy green float to the ground. Then he turned and stared out at the water and acted like I wasn’t there at all.

When I used to imagine what my kids would be like, way back when, before my life turned into an endless loop of
28 Days Later,
when I still thought I might have a chance at a normal adult life with a normal adult relationship, my imagination never conjured anything like Shane. It was tempting to think that all kids growing up through The Outbreak turned out like him—curiously overgrown, adults confined to pudgy little kid bodies. But Shane was a special case. I don’t know if it was the loss of his parents or being unceremoniously transferred to my custody or what, but something had shut down the thing that made him young. I couldn’t remember the last time he laughed and in the midst of death and change and uncertainty, I began to feel like a truly miserable parent. No, guardian.

But I hadn’t completely failed yet. Keeping him alive, making sure he didn’t end up like Arturo or Teresa or Isabella might give him the time and space to sort everything out. There would be years and years for him to loosen up, I decided, as long as I made sure those years happened.

Growling stomachs drew us from the beach, and Shane accompanied me in his grave, serious way back to the fire. Moritz was still there, bent over his knees and staring alternately at the bay and the waves. He smiled as Shane arrived, straightening up and grinning just a second too late.

“They done?” I asked, nodding over his shoulder and toward the mourners.

“I believe so, yes.” Moritz glanced nervously at Shane, as if we could somehow fuck up the weird little kid any more than he already was. “Nate has taken Danielle and Stefano out for another search. They want to try the beach to the north again since that’s … well … ostensibly the current would … she might have drifted…”

“I get the picture.” I squeezed Shane’s hand. “You hungry?”

Nod.

“Beans okay with you?”

Shrug.

“How about we settle on beans but I’ll draw you something too?”

That at least garnered a moderately more excited response.

Andrea appeared from our designated cabin, the state of her hair suggesting she had taken a nap. She pulled her muffin cap down onto her head and arranged her ponytail into a sloppy bun below it. “Shane, my man,” she said with a sleepy grin. “What is up?”

Another shrug. Andrea volunteered to help with the beans, showing Shane again how to stoke up the flames and leaving him with that task while we searched out spoons and bowls. A sort of cache or crate made of sturdy wooden slats had been wedged down into the sand beside the log benches. Most of the utensils and eating accoutrement stayed in there and a bucket was kept nearby with rain water for rinsing and washing. The food was secured in a wooden shack Whelan and Nate had built out of driftwood when they first arrived. The food hut was set well away from the water and ringed with can traps and bags of soap to keep raccoons and other furry sniffers away. It was a mighty fancy setup, or it looked like one to me, considering we had gone from Motel 6 levels of seedy desperation to what felt like the fucking Hilton.

Fuzzy bathrobes and free shower swag were just about the only things missing.

The bean operation successfully underway, I took a deliberately slow walk around the cabins to the stretch of more or less cleared land between the huts and the forest. Only Banana and Whelan lingered, both of them resting their arms on the handles of shovels. Despite the slight morning chill that was now advancing into an honest-to-God cold front, Whelan wiped at his forehead, depositing the sweaty strands of his hair back behind his ears.

“Goddamn reckless to let them go off again,” Whelan was saying. Sweat stains darkened the collar of his sweater and hung in spreading circles below his armpits. He turned at the waist at the sound of footsteps on the sand. My feet tingled at the sight of him, as if remembering all over again the agony of being riddled with pins.

“What’s wrong now?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said carefully. Banana retied the bandana around her hair. “I was wondering if you had any paper or chalk or anything. I wanted to draw something for Shane … to cheer him up.”

“Yeah, sure, of course! It just so happens we keep a whole trunk full of art supplies for just such a purpose. In fact, before we left Seattle I was thinking to myself, hey, what if I need to draw some pretty pictures to keep moral up? I better trade these fucking
indispensable
and
lifesaving
cans of food for some fucking
Cray-pas
and smelly markers.”

“Christ on a cracker, Whelan! Keep it together,” Banana whispered sharply.

“I get it,” I said. “Being a sarcastic douche bag is how you grieve. Forget I asked.”

I turned on my heel and left, a sharp pain cramping my feet, as if I’d been dancing a jig on a bed of nails. Banana followed. Whelan didn’t. She caught up to me around the huts, Whelan’s dismissive grunt still fogging up my ears and my better judgment.

“No fun allowed,” I muttered as I reached the fire. “So says the lord high crusher of gaiety and song.”

“He’s just messed up,” Banana said. “Fuck, you know, we all are.”

“Don’t apologize for him. He’s a grown-up,” I replied hotly. “At least, I thought he was…”

My wizened greeting card of a father always liked to say, “There’s a big difference between aging and growing up.” But he only said that when I was being a shithead. Hey! Sorta like …

“He feels responsible,” Banana raced on. She reached for her bandana again, taking it off to fuss with in her hands. “He’s … he calls the shots around here. He thinks those girls … He thinks it’s his fault.”

“Any idiot with eyes and a brain can see he didn’t do it,” Andrea mumbled, stirring the beans. Man, it felt good to have someone on my side.

“Exactly,” I said. “If anything we should all share the blame. They’re just kids. We should’ve been more careful.”

“Just…” Banana glanced over her shoulder at Whelan’s distant silhouette and then down at her hands. “I’ve got some pencils and a notebook in my bag. Will that help?”

Banana’s the sort of woman you want to hug all the time. All the damn time.

“Is there something I can do in return?” I asked.

She turned to retrieve the supplies. The smell of cooking beans wafted up, smoky and rich and mixing with the tang of the burning kindling. Salt rolled in from the sea, pine pushing against it as the forest’s fragrance swept down from the tree line.

“Yes,” Banana said, with a toss of her hair, “I think I know just the thing.”

*   *   *

“Just the thing” turned out to be waiting around well after dark in the glow of the fire pit, sitting there while everyone else slept, except maybe Banana, who I’m sure was spying for kicks. Repaying her was pretty much compulsory after she diffused the situation so expertly
and
came through with pencil and paper, but that didn’t mean I was jazzed about her plan.

She didn’t seem to care that this whole thing was about as subtle as a dump truck to the cerebellum. Whelan grieved by lashing out. Banana grieved by turning into burlesque yenta.

“It’ll be fun, babe,” she said, “and your feet hurt anyway.”

“Sure,” I had replied. “It’ll be fun! Fun like tongue-kissing a puffer fish.”

A quiet, mingling symphony of snores drifted from the cabin behind me. Moritz and Noah had recently become loud sleepers, which made nocturnal dealings with them extremely frustrating. I’m a light sleeper—car alarm, heavy breathing, you name it and I’m starting awake. Even just listening to their snoring while wide awake was starting to give me that twitchy, irritable feeling. Instead I tried to listen to the crackle of the fire, burning high now to keep zombies at bay. Some believe the fires draw them, a literal beacon for TASTY HUMANS HERE, but I’m of the school that thinks it’s the opposite. Zombies and flames do not mix … well, not happily in their case, and it’s as much a warning for them as it is a source of warmth and security for us. And of course that’s assuming they have any actual thoughts going on in those drippy, holy skulls of theirs … which is a stretch.

Snuggling down into the giant sweatshirt Banana had leant me, one clearly salvaged from her former place of work—the words
I GOT CAUGHT IN THE ACT …
were splashed across the front and
AT BENNY’S BURLESQUE!
delivered the punch line on the back—I decided that fire was indeed friend not foe and that my spot might actually be the safest in camp.

Out on the water, small boats danced, cupped leaves filled with bits of cheerfully burning tinder. It was Banana’s idea, to send out little ships of fire to celebrate the girls’—well,
girl’s
technically, but we pretty much all knew Teresa was a lost cause, too, poor thing—spirits, like miniature Viking pyres bouncing out onto the waves. They looked hypnotic there, burning down, almost out, a dozen flickering eyes disappearing out to sea.

A crunch of sand, a low, masculine snigger in the dark and then Whelan was there, standing at the edge of the circle of light described by the flames. He stepped into the bright orange glow and took a seat on the log next to me, bringing along a spicy scent that wasn’t terribly different from the fire smoke.