“
’Sup?” she says, and stands to move out of my way so I can open the door.
“You coming in?” I say and head inside.
We haven’t spoken since we came back from our little road trip from hell, but I can see that she hasn’t been faring too well. I head to the kitchen and grab two glasses and a small bottle of vodka that I traded for a months’ worth of vegetable peeling duties. I pour us both a glass, hand her one, and sit down at the stool in the kitchen.
She takes it and downs it in one. “I can
’t stop thinking about Rachel. Michael says I shouldn’t have killed her, that I’m a bad sister, but—”
“You are not a bad sister. Your brother
’s a dick,” I interrupt her.
She lights up another cigarette after finishing off her vodka
, and I swallow mine down and pour us both another.
“I can
’t sleep, I keep thinking of things…things that didn’t make sense at the time but do now, you know what I mean?” she says, smoke coming out of her nose as she exhales it but continues to talk. “Like everything is so obvious to me now.”
“It
’s called hindsight,” I say. I’m tired and don’t need this shit—I have enough of my own going on—but the woman is falling apart in front of me. “None of this was your fault, Nova.”
“M
ichael says it is, Michael says—”
“Again, Michael is a dick!” I interrupt
with a shout. “Look, pull your shit together. Your sister was a nutcase. Granted, her heart was—at the start—in the right place. She wanted to help save the world, but she tested on humans, on children. She impregnated a woman with zombie crap to see what the fuck would happen. Who does that? That’s like some sci-fi fucking mental shit going on.” I stand up, feeling agitated to hell and back. “Look, I don’t want to upset you any more than you clearly are, but I can’t say I’m not grateful that you killed her. I’d be dead if you hadn’t, and I did nothing other than stick my nose in where it wasn’t wanted.” I down my vodka and start to pour another one but think better of it: it’s hard to come by and damn expensive when we do get it.
“I know, I know,
” Nova sobs.
I groan. “I
’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel worse. It’s just my big mouth has no filter for the crap it spews. I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath. “Look, think about it this way: somewhere out there is a woman with something growing inside her—something human, not human, who the hell knows, right? Every time you feel like shit about killing Rachel, think about that woman, her fear of bringing a child into this world. A child that may very well kill her.”
As I say it, guilt burns my conscience. I
have no idea why guilt—
I
didn’t do it to her—but it’s guilt, one hundred percent. I remember something with a frown, something I hadn’t given much thought about until now.
“Nova, you asked me to get you a pregnancy test. Why was that?” I ask cautiously.
Nova sobs again. “I’m so sorry, fuck, I’m so sorry.” She heads for the door and I run to catch up to her.
“Nova!” I grab her shoulder and spin her
around. “What do you know?” I watch her face: anger, fear, sorrow, every emotion possible swims across her features. “Nova, what did she do?” I ask cautiously, my eyes slipping down her to her stomach.
She cries again. “
Not me, it’s Jessica. She said she wanted a baby. We were all drinking one night and we were talking about the future, and Jessica said the thing that she would miss most was that she would never have a family, because she would never bring a child into this world knowing that one day it would turn into one of those things. We were drunk and Rachel was blabbing about how she could create a baby that was immune to the zombie virus. One thing led to another and . . .” Her words trail off.
“And what?” I ask, unable to close my mouth
, which hangs open like that of a fish.
“And she said that she
’d done it before, that the only way to become immune to the virus was to use zombie DNA. I didn’t believe her at first, but she kept going on and on about it until I believed her. I never stopped to think about any of the whys or whatever. It made sense when I was wasted. So we rounded one up—a zombie—and,” she shrugs, “you know?”
“Holy fuck! Are you serious?” I step away from Nova, feeling dirty ju
st by being this close to her—as if by touching her I could catch her assholeness.
She nods frantically, her eyes fixing me to the spot.
“Does Michael know?” I hiss at her, anger at her—at their stupidity—growing. Everything is ten times worse than what I first thought. “I can’t even wrap my mind around this. It’s not a fucking virus, it’s death that turns us. How many times do I have to tell you people this?” I back up further, running hands across my face.
“I know, and that
’s why we completely lost it when Rachel was bitten. Because it was the most obvious fucking thing, and Rachel in all her clever wisdom didn’t even realize it. She was—they were looking for the disease pattern, a way to kill it, but—”
“There isn
’t a way to kill it,” I finish for her. “Death starts it and only death can end it.”
Nova nods her head again, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.
“The answer was right there under her nose the whole time.”
“Does Jessica know?” I ask.
Nova shakes her head.
“Shit, you bitch. H
ow far along is she?”
Nova shrugs. “I don
’t know, maybe six weeks, eight weeks, something like that.”
“And you’re certain?” I ask.
Nova nods. “Got me the pregnancy test, didn’t you?” She shrugs.
I walk back to the kitchen and unscrew the vodka
bottle, downing half its contents. Nova follows me.
“I thought we were helping, I thought Rachel was the fucking
savior of mankind. She said we had to leave because the other scientists wanted to take her ideas and use them for bad. That they wanted to use her research to take control of the world or some crazy shit. I thought it sounded stupid, to be honest, but then she brought that other woman and her husband to me, and they confirmed that they had been tested on. So I helped get us all out of there.”
“And then what?” I ask, feeling numb to everything she
’s saying.
“I didn
’t know it was Rachel that had tested on her—shit, that
woman
didn’t realize it was Rachel that had tested on her,” Nova says frantically.
“So, what happened?”
“When we got out, we separated. The woman thanked us and left with her husband, and that’s the last I saw of her—I swear!” Nova holds her hands up.
Neither of us says anything for a while. I
’m struck dumb by all this new information. I don’t know how to process it, what to do with any of it. A dark thought occurs to me, and I turn to Nova with a dread in my gut.
“Did she know?” I say.
Nova looks at me in confusion. “Who? What?”
“The woman? Did she know she had demon spawn inside her?”
Nova shrugs. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t think so, though.”
“We have to go find her.” I turn to Nova, expecting an argument, expecting some sort of disagreement from her, but all she sa
ys is…
“Okay.”
I nod and continue drinking. “We have to know what we’re dealing with, see if there is any hope for Jessica. We’ll go tomorrow, after the team sets off on their scavenging mission. We’ll take a truck, just you and me, some weapons, and we’ll go and find her we’ll bring her back here and hope that Becky can help her.” I mumble it out loud, more to confirm it with myself than her, but she agrees all the same.
“I can get us weapons, big weapons, and I can get keys to a truck and some gas for it.” Nova continues with my mumbling monologue, and I take up her place with the nodding.
“Where did you last see her? Do we know her name? Or the husband’s? Shit, we don’t know anything.” It’s the world’s stupidest rescue plan, but I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t do something.
The thing that keeps coming back to me
, though, is what happens after we find her, after we bring her back? If we can’t help her, she’ll die. And then what?
“It was n
orth of here.” She shrugs. “I can get us there, though. That won’t be a problem.” I can almost hear the cogs turning in her head as she thinks. “She was going east the last time I saw her. She said she had family back there.”
“And her name?” I prompt.
“Hilary. Her name was Hilary.”
No
va and I watch as Mikey, Michael, and Melanie head out in Betty. I feel a strange longing seeing Mikey in the passenger’s seat of Betty. I want to go and say goodbye, to tell him yet again to be safe and not to do anything stupid and rash—basically anything that I would do. Instead I turn to Nova and say . . .
“They
’re like M&M’s.” I chuckle, despite my grim mood.
“How so?” she asks, smoking a cigarette.
“Michael, Mikey, and Melanie.” I point, emphasizing the
M
s in their names.
“Ohhh, but that
’s three
M
s.”
I roll my eyes. “There
’s more than two M&M’s in a bag.”
“Ha, yeah.” She looks thoughtful for a moment.
“I could do with some of those right now.”
I roll my eyes again. “Come on, let
’s get our shit together.”
I walk back inside the truck depot. Nova has loaded up enough
weapons to blow up a small army. I’m hoping we won’t need to use them, but you never know. In fact, I’m hoping that we find this woman and get back here before Mikey and the rest return. Not that he’ll say anything—he doesn’t seem to give much of a shit about me anymore, and I’ve made peace with that. Who am I kidding? Of course I haven’t. But there’s nothing I can do about it now.
We head over to talk to
Zee and James before we leave. We want them to know what we’re doing, though we don’t expect any help. It’s more of an
‘it would be fucking moronic to go out there without telling at least one person.
’ We’re living in a horror story—doesn’t mean we have to make stupid mistakes like they do in movies.
I knock on Zee
’s door, thankfully finding James is inside with him. At least it will save us from having to go hunt him down and tell this sick story twice. Nova does surprisingly well telling both men what happened previously—filling Zee in on the parts that Michael left out, and saving on the waterworks. Michael is a bigger dick than I first thought, having only told Zee that they were testing on humans and missing out the important part of impregnating innocent women with demon spawn, including our very own Jessica.
“So
she doesn’t know?” Zee asks gravely.
“No, she has no idea. She thinks the baby will be immune to the zombie virus.
But again, it’s not a fucking virus,” I say angrily. “Look, maybe the baby will be fine, maybe it will be deformed, maybe there’s nothing even growing in her. It’s all a lot of maybes and not a lot of answers. But we need to find out.”
James is standing at the window, looking out. He turns around and casts a
judgmental eye on Nova. “And you went along with this?”
She shakes her head. “No
, I didn’t know what she was doing, what any of them were doing to people.” She swallows hard. “Please don’t judge her too harshly. She wanted to help, in her own way.”
“I don
’t see how it’s even feasibly possible. The zombies are dead—everything about them is dead and rotting.” Zee huffs out an angry sigh. “You can’t grow something from a dead seed.”
Nova shrugs. “I was never the
brains of the operation so I can’t tell you more than I know, but Rachel used to say that they weren’t totally dead—parts of them were still alive.” She points to her head. “Like the brain, there’s a spark or whatever. That’s why they are still up and moving. They wanted to try and cure the zombies at first, but they realized that wouldn’t be possible and so they thought that maybe they could…”
“Grow a cure,
” I say with a shake of my head.
“So, the sperm is alive?” James grimaces.
“Well, I don’t actually know,” Nova says. “Rachel seemed to think there was something special with it—enough so that others believed her—but something scared her away from the experiments. Something was obviously wrong for her to drag us all out of there.” She reaches for her cigarettes.
“Please don
’t,” Zee says to her. “So am I correct in thinking we don’t really know very much about this? And you want to track down this woman to see what became of her? To maybe bring her back here and…and we’ll see if Jessica will be okay . . . ?” His words trail off.
I nod. “Yeah, that
’s about it. We don’t really have more of a plan than that. I mean, she could be fine, we could all be worrying for nothing.”
Nova nods. “But we
need to find out if it’s…it’s,” she looks at us all, “human or not.”
“We should just get
Jessica to abort whatever it is,” James says matter-of-factly.
“Tried that. S
he said no way, that it could be her only chance to have a child without the zombie virus.” She holds up a hand. “And before you say it, I told her it’s not a virus and that she could have a child naturally without all the zombie sperm.” She grimaces and squirms in her seat. “But again, she said she doesn’t care, that this is her baby, yada yada, you get the idea.” She taps her cigarette pack again. “I really need to smoke,” she mumbles to Zee.
“We could force her,
” I say coldly.
“We could
. It would seem that would be the most sensible plan of action for all involved.” Zee stands and clears his throat. “In fact, I think that’s exactly what must be done.” He rubs his hands together.
“What about the other woman? She
’s still carrying…something inside her,” I say, not feeling wholly comfortable with my own suggestion of forcing someone to have an abortion.
“That
’s not our problem, Nina,” Zee says.
“Like hell it
’s not,” I snap. “That woman—Hilary—could need our help. You housed Rachel, she was a citizen of your little community here, and she did that to her. We need to find and help her.”
“Nina, I think you
’re letting your own emotions cloud your judgment,” James says with a frown.
I fish-
mouth for a second. “I’m sorry, my emotions? What the hell are you talking about?” I scowl.
“I know that your breakup with Mikey has hit you hard, but it
’s time to move on,” James says as delicately as he can, but every word is a dagger in my stomach.
My face flushes in embarrassment. “Are you fucking serious? My relationship or lack of has nothing to do with this. I want to help this woman because it
’s the right thing to do.” I stand up. “I’m going to try and find her, and I’ll be bringing her back here no matter what. Do not, I repeat, do
not
fucking touch Jessica until I get back,” I yell as I storm out of the room, needing to get away from all the sympathetic stares before I throat-punch someone.
I storm down the
hall and out the door, heading across the yard and toward the depot again.
“Nina, wait up, darlin
’,” Nova shouts behind me.
I don
’t stop but I slow down and allow her to catch up to me. “Jesus, have I been a total flake lately? I mean, honestly, give it to me straight, is everyone looking at me liking I’m a total loser because Mikey and I broke up?” I pull open one of the heavy metal doors while Nova grabs the other one.
She shrugs. “No, not really.” S
he waves a hand in front of her face. “Pfft, I mean, hardly anyone is talking about it—not now, anyway.”
“Not now? Wait, what?” I climb into the truck and start the engine, waiting as Nova climbs into the passenger
’s side. “Fuck it, I don’t care.” I drive the truck out of the depot.
We drive through the base, passing my home and the
consignment shop. The place is busy today, and people look up as I drive past. I drive by the medical center and think about going in to say goodbye to Emily, but don’t.
It
’s a shitty thing to do, really—she nearly didn’t forgive me for going on that scavenger mission and not telling her, so this might seal our fate as far as friendship goes—but I know she’ll want to come with me if I tell her, and that is not going to happen.
She
’s safer here, with these people. These are better friends to her than I ever was. At least they’ve never put her in harm’s way—unlike me. I continue driving, and when we get to the main gates, we stop and wait for them to open. Susan and Eric—a man that I’ve seen around but haven’t had time to get to know much—are on guard today. They smile but don’t ask any questions as we leave.
“You sure that you want to do this?” Nova
asks, lighting up a cigarette.
I look at her. “Yeah
.” I swallow. “Zee told you about the Forgotten, I’m guessing?”
She nods. “He did. I
’m part of security, it’s my job to know the dangers. I think that’s what pisses me off about the whole Michael thing: he knows how important safety is, and yet there was a threat under our noses and he didn’t tell me. Now I might have sentenced Jessica to death because of it.”
I purse my lips, deciding it
’s best for me to keep my mouth shut right now.
“You know
,” she continues, “she could be dead already, right?” She pulls out a bottle of vodka, unscrews the lid, and takes a swig. “This could be for nothing.”
I shrug. “We have to try.”
“And you know that Emily and Mikey are going to go bat-shit crazy when they realize that you’re gone, right?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Dude, do you want to do this with me or not?”
Nova smiles. “Fuck yeah.”
“Then shut the hell up.” I rev the engine and we pull away.
I watch in my rearview mirror as the base fades into the distance, and a dark feeling settles in the pit of my stomach. Mentally I say goodbye to Mikey and Emily, but in my heart I know that we’ll meet again. In this life or the next.
I reach a fork in the road. “Nova?”
“Yep?” She stops making smoke circles and looks at me.
“Umm, which way is n
orth?” I scratch my head and laugh: some things never change.