Warm Bodies (13 page)

I raise my eyebrows, full of questions that I’m afraid to ask.

She massages her forehead and lets out a slow breath. ‘Can you go find the gas by yourself, R? I need . . . to think for a minute.’ She doesn’t look at me as she speaks. Tentatively, I reach out and put a hand on her shoulder. She flinches, then softens, then suddenly turns and embraces me hard, burying her face in my shirt.

‘I just need a minute,’ she says, pulling away and recovering herself.

So I leave her there. I find an empty gas can in the garage and begin working my way around the block, looking for a vehicle with a full tank to drain. As I kneel beside a recently crashed Chevy Tahoe with the siphon tube gurgling in my hand, I hear the sound of an engine starting in the distance. I ignore it. I focus on the taste of gasoline, harsh and astringent in my mouth. When the can is full I walk back to the cul-de-sac, closing my eyes and letting the sun flood through my eyelids. Then I open them, and just stand there for a while, holding the red plastic can like a belated birthday gift. The Mercedes is gone.

Inside the house, on the dining-room table, I find a note. Something is written on it, letters I can’t assemble into words, but next to it are two Polaroids. Both pictures are of Julie, taken by Julie, with the camera extended at arm’s length and pointed at herself. In one of them, she is waving. The gesture looks limp, half-hearted. In the other one, she is holding that hand against her chest. Her face is stoic, but her eyes are damp.

Goodbye, R
, the picture whispers to me.
It’s that time now. It’s time to say it. Can you say it?

I hold the picture in front of me, staring at it. I rub my fingers on it, smearing its fresh emulsion into rainbow blurs. I consider taking it with me, but no. I’m not ready to make Julie a souvenir.

Say it, R. Just say it
.

I set the picture back on the table, and leave the house. I don’t say it.

I begin walking back to the airport. I’m not sure what’s waiting for me. Full-death? Quite possibly. After the commotion I caused, the Boneys might simply dispose of me like infectious waste. But I’m alone again. My world is small, my options are few. I don’t know where else to go.

The journey of forty minutes by car will be a day-long trip on foot. As I walk, the wind seems to reverse direction, and yesterday’s thunderheads creep back onto the horizon for an encore. They spiral over me, slowly shrinking the circle of blue sky like an immense camera aperture. I walk fast and stiff, almost marching.

I walk off the freeway at the next exit and climb into a triangle of landscaping between the road and the off ramp. I crash through the brush and duck into the little cluster of trees, a mini-forest of ten or twelve cedars arranged in a pleasing pattern for overstressed commuter ghosts.

I curl into a ball at the base of one of these trees, achieving some degree of shelter under its scrawny branches, and close my eyes. As lightning flickers on the horizon like flashbulbs and thunder rumbles in my bones, I drift into darkness.

I am with Julie on the 747. I realise it’s a dream. A
real
dream, not just another rerun of Perry Kelvin’s syndicated life. This is coming purely from me. The clarity has improved since the blurry sludge of my brain’s first attempt back in the airport, but there’s still an awkward, shaky quality to everything, like amateur video to Perry’s slick feature films.

Julie and I sit cross-legged, facing each other, floating above the clouds on the plane’s bright white wing. The wind ruffles our hair, but no more than a leisurely ride in a convertible.

‘So you dream now?’ Julie says.

I smile nervously. ‘I guess I do.’

Julie doesn’t smile. Her eyes are cold. ‘Guess you had nothing to dream about till you got some girl problems. You’re like a grade-school kid trying to keep a diary.’

Now we’re on the ground, sitting on a sunny green suburban lawn. A morbidly obese couple barbecues human limbs in the background. I try to keep Julie in focus.

‘I’m changing,’ I tell her.

‘I don’t care,’ she replies. ‘I’m home now. I’m back in the real world, where you don’t exist. Summer camp is over.’

A winged Mercedes rumbles past in the distant sky and vanishes in a muffled sonic boom.

‘I’m gone,’ she says, staring me hard in the eyes. ‘It was fun, but it’s over now. This is how things go.’

I shake my head, avoiding her gaze. ‘I’m not ready.’

‘What did you think was going to happen?’

‘I don’t know. I was just hoping for something. A miracle.’

‘Miracles don’t exist. There is cause and effect, dreams and reality, Living and Dead. Your hope is absurd. Your romanticism, embarrassing.’

I look at her uneasily.

‘It’s time for you to grow up. Julie has gone back to her position, and you will go back to your position, and that is the way it is. Always has been. Always will be.’

She grins, and her teeth are jagged yellow fangs. She kisses me, gnawing through my lips, biting out my teeth, gnashing up towards my brain and screaming like a dying child. I gag on my hot red blood.

My eyes flash open and I stand up, pushing dripping branches out of my face. It’s still night. The rain is still pummelling the earth. I step out of the trees and climb up onto the overpass. I lean against the railing, looking out at the empty freeway and the dark horizon beyond it. One thought pounds in my head like a migraine of rage:
You’re wrong. You fucking monsters are wrong. About
everything.

Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse a silhouette on the other side of the overpass. The dark form moves towards me with steady, lumbering steps. I hunch my muscles together, preparing for a fight. After wandering alone for too long, the unincorporated Dead will sometimes lose the ability to distinguish their own kind from the Living. And some are so far gone, so deep into this way of life, they just don’t care either way. They will eat anyone, anything, anywhere, because they can’t fathom any other way to interact. I imagine one of these creatures surprising Julie as she stops the Mercedes to get her bearings, wrapping filthy hands around her face and biting down on her slender neck, and as that image ferments in my head, I prepare to tear this thing in front of me to unrecognisable shreds. The primordial rage that fills me every time I think of someone harming her is frightening. The violence of killing and eating people feels like friendly teasing compared to this consuming bloodlust.

The towering shadow staggers closer. A flash of lightning illuminates its face, and I drop my arms to my sides.

‘M?’

I almost fail to recognise him at first. His face has been torn and clawed, and there are countless small chunks bitten out of his body.

‘Hey,’ he grunts. The rain streaks down his face and pools in his wounds. ‘Let’s . . . get out of . . . rain.’ He walks past my leaky trees and climbs down the slope to the freeway below. I follow him to the dry space under the overpass. We huddle there in the dirt, surrounded by old beer cans and syringes.

‘What . . . doing . . . he . . . out . . . out here?’ I ask him, fighting for the words. I’ve been silent less than a day and I’m already rusty.

‘Take . . . guess,’ M says, pointing at his wounds. ‘Boneys. Drove me out.’

‘Sorry.’

M grunts. ‘Fuck . . . it.’ He kicks a sun-faded beer can. ‘But guess . . . what?’ Something like a smile illuminates his mangled face. ‘Some . . . came with me.’

He points down the freeway, and I see about nine other figures moving slowly towards us.

I look at M, confused. ‘Came . . . with? Why?’

He shrugs. ‘Things . . . crazy . . . back home. Routines . . . shook.’ He jabs a finger at me. ‘You.’

‘Me?’

‘You and . . . her. Something . . . in air. Movement.’

The nine zombies stop under the overpass and stand there, looking at us blankly.

‘Hi,’ I say.

They sway and groan a little. One of them nods.

‘Where’s . . . girl?’ M asks me.

‘Her name is Julie.’ This comes off my tongue fluidly, like a swish of warm camomile.

‘Ju . . . lie,’ M repeats with some effort. ‘Okay. Where’s . . . she?’

‘Left. Went home.’

M studies my face. He drops a hand onto my shoulder. ‘You . . . okay?’

I close my eyes and take a slow breath. ‘No.’ I look out at the freeway, towards the city, and something blooms in my head. First a feeling, then a thought, then a choice. ‘I’m going after her.’

Six syllables. I have broken my record again.

‘To . . . Stadium?’

I nod.

‘Why?’

‘To . . . save her.’

‘From . . . what?’

‘Ev . . . rything.’

M just looks at me for a long time. Among the Dead, a piercing look can last several minutes. I wonder if he can possibly have any idea what I’m talking about, when I’m not even sure I do. Just a gut feeling. The soft pink zygote of a plan.

He gazes up at the sky, and a faraway look comes into his eyes. ‘Had . . . dream . . . last night.
Real
dream.
Memories
.’

I stare at him.

‘Remembered . . . when young. Summer. Cocoa . . . Puffs. A girl.’ His eyes refocus on me. ‘What . . . is it like?’

‘What?’

‘You’ve . . . felt. Do you know . . . what it is?’

‘What are . . . talking about?’

‘My dream,’ he says, his face full of wonder like a child’s at a telescope. ‘Those things . . . love?’

A tingle runs up my spine. What is happening? To what distant reaches of space is our planet hurtling? M is dreaming, reclaiming memories, asking astonishing questions. I am breaking my syllable records every day. Nine unknown Dead are with us under this overpass, miles from the airport and the hissing commands of the skeletons, standing here awaiting . . .
something
.

A fresh canvas is unfurling in front of us. What do we paint on it? What’s the first hue to splash on this blank field of grey?

‘I’ll . . . go with,’ M says. ‘Help you . . . get in. Save her.’ He turns to the waiting Dead. ‘Help us?’ he asks, not raising his voice above its easy rumble. ‘Help save . . . girl? Save . . .’ He closes his eyes and concentrates. ‘
Ju
. . .
lie
?’

The Dead quicken at the sound of the name, fingers twitching and eyes darting. M looks pleased. ‘Help find . . . something lost?’ he asks in a voice more solid than I’ve ever heard from his tattered throat. ‘Help . . . exhume?’

The zombies look at M. They look at me. They look at each other. One of them shrugs. Another nods. ‘Help,’ one of them groans, and they all wheeze in agreement.

I find a grin spreading across my face. I don’t know what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, or what will happen when it’s done, but at the very bottom of this rising siege-ladder, I at least know I’m going to see Julie again. I know I’m not going to say goodbye. And if these staggering refugees want to help, if they think they see something bigger here than a boy chasing a girl, then they can help, and we’ll see what happens when we say
Yes
while this rigor mortis world screams
No
.

We start lumbering north on the southbound freeway, and the thunder drifts away towards the mountains as if it’s scared of us.

Here we are on the road. We must be going somewhere.

step two
taking

I am young. I am a teenage boy aflame with health, strong and virile and pounding with energy. But I get older. Every second ages me. My cells spread themselves thinner, stiffening, cooling, darkening. I am fifteen, but each death around me adds a decade. Each atrocity, each tragedy, each small moment of sadness. Soon I will be ancient.

Here I am, Perry Kelvin in the Stadium. I hear birds in the walls. The bovine moans of pigeons, the musical chirps of starlings. I look up and breathe deep. The air is so much cleaner lately, even here. I wonder if this is what the world smelled like when it was new, centuries before smokestacks. It frustrates and fascinates me that we’ll never know for sure, that despite the best efforts of historians and scientists and poets, there are some things we’ll just never know. What the first song sounded like. How it felt to see the first photograph. Who kissed the first kiss, and if it was any good.

‘Perry!’

I smile and wave at my little admirer as he and his dozen foster-siblings cross the street in a line, hand in hand. ‘Hey . . . buddy,’ I call to him. I can never remember his name.

‘We’re going to the gardens!’

‘Cool!’

Julie Grigio grins at me, leading their line like a mother swan. In a city of thousands I run into her almost every day, sometimes near the schools where it seems probable, sometimes in the outermost corners of the Stadium where the odds are slim. Is she stalking me or am I stalking her? Either way, I feel a pulse of stress hormones shoot through me every time I see her, rushing to my palms to make them sweat and to my face to make it pimply. Last time we met, she took me up on the roof. We listened to music for hours, and when the sun went down, I’m pretty sure we almost kissed.

‘Want to come with us, Perry?’ she says. ‘It’s a field trip!’