The Dead Circle (23 page)

Chris did not.

“OK. Go clean yourself up.”

When Chris went into the kitchen to look for Band-Aids, his mother was there working on dinner.

“Don’t forget to wash your hands for dinner Chrissy. We’re having meatloaf and scalloped potatoes. Just the way you like them.” She didn’t look up from her cooking to see the state Chris was in. She didn’t seem to notice. She didn’t seem to notice much of anything in those days.

***

“You’ve got to let me look at your cut again.”

It’s still dark and gloomy in the room, so Sarah grabs a flashlight to examine Chris’ shoulder more carefully.

“I’m fine. You’ve checked it five times already.”

“Look. In the ‘real world’ you can be idiot-tough-guy-man, but this is the zombie apocalypse world. I’m not going to fuck around with a wound. We’ve got to keep cleaning it. Take off your shirt.”

“Sarah, I’m fine.”

“I’ll be the judge of that!” she says with more anger than she intends. “Take off your shirt.”

“OK. I will, but remember. I’m not Mikey. This is a different-”

“Don’t you dare! You can’t just use him every time you think I’m overreacting. That’s a really shitty thing to do.”

“I’m not-”

“Yes you are. You’ve been finding ten thousand different ways to subtly tell me I’m being overprotective.”

He gives her a slightly condescending look and it sends her fury over the top.

“Stop looking at me like that! Like I’m overreacting like a crazy person!” She’s shouting now.

“Nobody said you were crazy. I’m just saying that I’ve got this. I can take care of myself. It’s not your responsibility.”

“The fuck it isn’t! I’m your wife!”

“No, I’m just saying that it’s my job to take care of myself. I don’t need you to figure out what to-”

“Chris! We work together. We need to help each other. You don’t know everything and neither do I.”

“I’m responsible for myself.”

“That’s moronic. We’re responsible for each other. Tell your father to go fuck himself.”

“Leave my father out of… It’s got nothing to do with…” Chris now feels his own anger building. He wants to fight. He wants to tell her to fuck off, but right before he does, a tiny little voice in the back of his head whispers
‘she’s right buddy.
’ Deflated, he slowly shuts his mouth and just nods. Without looking her in the eye, he begins taking off his shirt. Underneath a strip of gauze is an eight-inch gash running down his shoulder.

“Look, I know you can’t stand somebody taking care of you and I know it’s annoying, but we need to clean it again. I think you should take some more antibiotics just to be safe.”

“I dunno. We should save the antibiotics for emergencies.”

“Emergencies! Like what? The end of the world?”

Chris closes his mouth and waits her out.

She considers shouting some more, but her own little voice catches her and she takes a deep breath before continuing. “I’m sorry. But we cleaned out an entire drug store. We have enough medication for two lifetimes.”

Sarah takes their first aid kit out and starts to clean, disinfect, and re-dress the wound. Chris winces when Sarah pours iodine on the cut, but does not make a sound. There is a long beat of silence. They imagined they would be celebrating tonight after getting back with so many supplies, but the experience has left them both melancholy.

***

Chris always assumed he would have kids. He was startled when on his first real date with Sarah, she matter-of-factly announced that she would never have children.

They were having dinner at a brick-oven pizza place down the block from Sarah’s tiny studio apartment. They had just placed their orders, her sausage and basil and his pesto with truffle oil, when she set down her glass of wine and gave him the speech she gave to all of her first dates.

“Chris, you seem like a really nice guy. And I think you’re cute and possibly datable. But, you should know right away that I don’t want to have kids. Ever.”

“Uh…”

“No, it’s OK. I know I’m being weird, but we’re adults and I don’t want to waste your time. If you’re dead set on having kids, it’s totally cool and I won’t be mad at all if you get up and leave this instant.”

“Um… well I’m kind of excited about my pizza.”

Sarah looked at him warily, checking for signs of panic. He looked a bit surprised but seemed to be still present. In fact she thought he might be bemused.

“Do you say that to the all the boys on your first dates?”

“Don’t make fun of me. I’m trying to be fair.”

“I’m not making fun of you. I think you might be putting the cart ahead of the horse, but it’s honorable at least. And to be honest, I’m flattered that you think of me as a guy who might care, that you think I might be concerned with something more than just getting in your pants.”

Sarah smiled and took a deep breath. She was relieved. She was used to two responses from this speech. Either the guy is horrified and judges her, thinking that she is a cold bitch who hates kids, or the guy is thrilled and thinks she’s saying that she’s a commitment-free slut. 

“So…?”

“So I don’t know. I always assumed I would have kids someday. But I like you. I don’t have any idea yet if it’s a deal-breaker for me in the long run. Or if there even is a long run. It’s a first date right?” They both laughed nervously. “But I guess it’s not a deal-breaker for me right now.”

“Great.”

There was a beat of awkward silence. Neither of them knew what to say next.

“So, I guess it’s kind of sexist for me to be curious why you don’t want to have kids? I mean, why would I assume that you would?”

“No, I think it’s a fair question. I mean, I assumed you would too. See, kids are such an enormous responsibility. I don’t just mean the huge amount of time and money it takes. It’s not about fear of commitment or anything.” She took a sip of wine. Chris let her formulate her thought. She rarely got this far in her previous attempts at explaining so she needed a moment. “It’s about the responsibility of taking care of someone: to keep a child safe, to keep it happy. I mean, there are so many ways to fuck up someone’s life. So many opportunities to fail a child. To do something horrible, even by accident. I know I’d screw up. I don’t want that kind of pressure.”

“I don’t think anybody expects parents to be perfect. The very fact that you admit being fallible would make you a better parent than many.”

“I’m not worried about being fallible. I’m not talking about forgetting to pick them up after soccer practice or sending them to their room unfairly. I’m talking about big stuff. Safety. Do you have any idea how easy it is to kill a kid? You look the wrong way and BAM, it gets run over by a car, or falls off the balcony, or drinks poison or gets abducted by some predator. Then it’s maimed or dead. And you’ve brought something into the world and filled its life with misery and pain.”

Sarah’s eyes filled up with tears. She didn’t cry in front of him, but she slammed her napkin down more forcefully than she intended, got up and went to the restroom. When she returned a few minutes later, she was red-faced from embarrassment.

“Are you OK?”

“I’m so sorry. That was so embarrassing. I swear I’m not crazy.”

“I shouldn’t have asked. Obviously this means a great deal to you. It’s none of my business.”

“My little brother Mikey… he…” She felt her eyes start to well up again, but she was not going to let herself cry. She was angry at herself, ashamed at her lack of control. She stopped speaking and reached for her glass again.

Chris extended his arm and put his hand over hers, both holding on to her wine-glass for a moment.

“It’s OK. You can tell me about it later. Or not at all.”

A tear escaped her eye and hit the cloth napkin in front of her.

“Eek. I’m a guy’s worst nightmare. The crazy girl who cries on the first date.”

Chris looked at her seriously. “Yeah, but you have great boobs.”

Sarah couldn’t contain a grin. Chris smiled and released her hand. “Look, the pizza’s here. Let’s eat.”

***

His wound cleaned and dressed again, Chris decides to break the silence. “So why did the circle break up? Why are they trying to eat us now after ignoring us for two months?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“I was hoping you had more bug trivia that would explain it.” Chris gives Sarah a sad grin that looks more like a grimace.

She grimaces back. “Yikes. If I’m the source of our scientific wisdom, we’re truly fucked.”

“Well, I guess we can guess? Most parasites infect stuff because they want to eat right? They’re creating a food source for themselves.”

“Or their offspring. Some wasps lay eggs directly into living spiders or caterpillars and when they hatch, they explode right out of the poor thing.”

“Ugh. And then the babies eat them?”

“Nope. The larvae mind-control the host to serve as a protector until they mature.”

“That’s freaking weird.”

“Mikey loved telling that story.”

 “I’ll bet. But we assume that eventually the host gets eaten?”

“Not always. Sometimes the unlucky bastards get eaten alive, from the inside. But other ones just starve to death because they don’t have enough brain left to remember to eat. Of course there’s the other category of parasites that just hangs out and eats what their host eats. Like a tapeworm.”

“Oh right. Duh. So, what do we think’s happening here? Did this parasite just run out of whatever they were eating in the bodies and need more? So they’re making the bodies get them more food?”

“Maybe. It doesn’t really matter does it?” Sarah has lost her scientific curiosity. To her it feels like intellectual vanity. They have no idea what’s happening and they’re deluding themselves pretending that a musician and a former architect could ever be capable of figuring it out. Right now, all that matters is survival.

“Before we just had to worry about water, now we’ve got… zombies everywhere.”

“Lucky us.”

He takes a deep breath and his words come out as almost a sigh. “So what do we do?”

“We have to build much stronger barricades. We have to find fuel. We have to get the supplies off the bus.”

Chris can tell that Sarah wants to move on to more practical considerations, but he can’t shake the nagging questions that have been eating at the back of his consciousness for a while now. The breakup of the circle seems to have amplified them. “I don’t mean right now. Or tomorrow. I mean like forever. What do we
do
? What kind of life can we have? We still haven’t found anyone else alive. Are we alone?”

Sarah looks into his eyes. They seem to have avoided this conversation until now. “We can’t possibly be the only survivors. Besides, the government could be working on a solution.”

“I don’t think there is a government anymore. I don’t even think there is a society anymore. What if we truly are the last? What do we do? Just try to survive? What’s the point? What’s the endgame?”

“Well-”

Chris jumps back in. “I don’t want to just exist. There has to be a future.”

Sarah doesn’t exactly know how to respond. She’s not even sure how she feels. She has avoided thinking about it because the topic is crushing.

“What about…” He knows this is a dangerous topic, but he can’t seem to contain himself. “…having a baby? If our species is going to survive we’re going to-”

Sarah responds sharply. Her anger surprises even her. “We’re not having baby. As far as we know, it’s just us. Even if we popped out a dozen kids, it’s not enough to repopulate humanity. If this is everywhere, then our species is going to die out either way. And you and I are going to die. Maybe tomorrow or maybe in fifty years, but either way, we’re going to die. Do you want to leave a child
alone
in this fucking hell?”

Chris blinks. Her ferocity startles him, but her logic is sound. After a beat, he sighs again. “No. You’re right.”

Sarah closes her eyes for a moment and speaks more quietly, more slowly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap, I’m just- I don’t know. Why
are
we still alive?”

Chris pauses and waits for Sarah to look at him again. “You’re the reason I’m alive.”

Sarah stares back at her husband, disarmed. To her, his sweetness always feels a little heartbreaking. Sometimes his optimism and open heart made him seem the tiniest bit naïve. Like he didn’t really know how cold and dark the world really was. On the other hand, it was this unbreakable capacity to find reasons for joy, for hope and for love that made her marry him. Somewhere along the line she had lost that part of herself.

For a long time she thought there was something she knew that he didn’t. After all their years of marriage, she thinks perhaps it’s the other way around. That he knows something she doesn’t. She smiles. “I bet you say that to all the girls when society is destroyed by naked dancing zombies.”

He ignores her attempt to deflect sentiment. “Shut up. Listen. That was true long before all this.”

“Come here you.”

She pulls him into an embrace. He nestles his head between her breasts. The gesture isn’t sexual or desperate. They are just close, together.

*

The following morning the street in front of the library is still swarmed with the dead. The car alarm had drawn hundreds of them from blocks away. Now, even in the absence of more noise, they continue to mill about. They’re hungry, but without some sort of external stimulus to draw them away, they have little reason to move on. A few of them wander away at the sound of a far-off dog barking, or sensing some trash blowing down the street, but they’re leaving in a maddeningly slow trickle, not a stream.