When the Dead (16 page)

Rob
watched Molly and Gabe as they played together. Things felt great now that no
one was worrying about the baby or the food. Everything was in its place and
life, or a semblance of it, could go on inside Willow Brook.

            “Molly,
I’m going to visit Isobel and Ben for a sec, do you two need anything?” Rob
asked in a voice he hoped didn’t sound condescending.

            Molly
looked up and smiled. “I think we have everything we need.”

            Rob
found Isobel and Ben eating a late breakfast in their apartment. “Am I
interrupting?”

            “Not
at all. Do you want some coffee?” Ben asked.

            “That
would be great,” Rob said as he sat down on the couch that doubled as Ben’s
bed.

            “We
even have some little creamer cups that haven’t gone bad. I don’t know where
Molly found them but you should thank her,” Isobel said, standing up to prepare
him a cup since Ben hadn’t moved.

            “I’ll
remember to do that.”

            “So
what’s on your mind that you’ve decided to stop by?” Isobel asked as she set
his coffee down on the table in front of him.

            “Well,
instead of gathering every time something goes wrong I thought I would stop by
when things were calm for a change; just as a neighbor and not a co-survivor.”

            “Don’t
get too comfortable. You never know what’s going to happen,” Ben said.

“Of
that
you are right. But, I really think things will settle
down,” Rob sighed and sipped his coffee,
“or maybe I mean that I don’t
see what could go wrong next.”

“The dead are walking so anything is possible. Things we can’t even begin
to prepare ourselves for could be in the works for us right now,” Isobel said
ominously, but laughed.

            “You
might not be prepared for this but, I’ve been hearing some . . . ahem . . .
strange noises from the Brown-Newsom residence next door.”

            “Really?
Are you sure?” Ben asked.

            “Yep.
Last night and this morning. I don’t like to gossip but I think Jeff and Markus
have really hit it off,” Rob made an obscene gesture with his hand.

            “Rob!”
Isobel yelled.

            “Gabe
isn’t here and I had to make sure you understood what I meant,” Rob laughed.

“Jeff has been emotionally and probably physically abused by Sheila for
years. It’s possible that Jeff has turned to Markus for comfort and affection.
I think it’s great. Jeff deserves some happiness. We all do,” Ben said, looking
to Isobel. She didn’t look back.

 “He definitely has something to be happy about. He is the only one of us
getting laid. They got so loud the other night that Gabe heard them and ran
scared into my room thinking that zombies had broken into the building.”

            Isobel
smiled.
“I don’t even want to know what you told him.”

“Sometimes men love men. That is all I had to say. Now this morning he
has a gay Lego couple running a restaurant. He’s pretty open-minded.”

“Yeah, he’s a good kid. Pretty resilient in all of this too it seems,”
Ben said.

“He’s playing tough for me. I do the same for him. We are tricking one another.”

            “Well
you had me fooled too,” Isobel said.

Gabe was
playing near the window and watching the rain start when he saw a girl run by.
She looked different than the monsters to him. She was faster and looked
scared.

            “Molly,
there’s someone out there,” Gabe said without turning away from the window.

            “I
know, Gabe, there are a lot of people out there.”

 “She’s different,” Gabe clarified.

Molly pulled herself off of the floor where she’d been sitting surrounded
by toys and went to the window. Gabe was right. A teenage girl was running back
and forth in the street in front of Willow Brook, screaming. Her brown hair was
greasy and stringy, her clothes and face smudged with dirt, her adolescent form
worryingly thin. She was running around so much that she looked on the verge of
fainting.

            “How
does she know we are here?” Molly asked aloud. “Come on Gabe. Let’s go to
Isobel’s and tell the others.”

Gabe smiled and followed Molly happily. He liked being included in the
adult stuff sometimes.

“Can you
hear me? Let me in!” Hayden yelled but she wasn’t seeing any movement in the
building. She was growing weak from the exertion but she couldn’t stop; the
dead would get her. She saw the convenience store on the corner. She ran around
the back side of it and managed to climb up to the roof. She was trying to make
herself more visible. Her throat hurt from yelling but she still couldn’t see
anyone responding to her pleas.
Maybe I have the wrong building?
She
thought to herself. She pulled the note back out and reread it.

            “Help
me!” she yelled. She wanted to yell for Tom, the man who had left the note but
she could tell from what he wrote that it wouldn’t be a good idea. A massive
crowd of the dead milled around at the foot of the store. The entire glass
front of it had been smashed in by them and tabloids and candy bars littered
the entry. She listened to the crunching of the wrappers and the horrible
sounds of the dead as she sat in the rain, shivering and waiting for a
response.

Isobel,
Ben and Rob went to the windows of 205 at Molly and Gabe’s request. They could
all see the girl, perched on the edge of the roof, soaked to her bones by the
falling rain. The hands of the dead reaching into the air trying to grip her
ankles or anything else they might get a hold of. Occasionally she would yell
something and wave her arms.

            “How
does she know we are here?” Isobel asked.

            “That’s
what I was wondering,” Molly said.

            “We
can find that out later. What we need to decide is whether or not we can help
her,” Rob said.

            “We
have room since, well, since Jill and the baby, you know . . .” Ben couldn’t
finish his sentence, but he didn’t need to.

            “Does
she look like she could have been bitten? We can’t let her in if she is going
to expose us,” Molly said.

            “I
can’t tell from here. I think it’s a risk we’ll have to take. We can quarantine
her or something, right?” Isobel looked to the group for some sort of
agreement. Everyone nodded but Isobel was unsure of the next step. “How are we
going to do this then?”

            “I’m
going to ask Vaughn if he has a megaphone. We need her to stop yelling. She’ll
be lucky to get off that roof with all the dead that she’s brought here,” Ben
said.

Markus
and Jeff had spent the last day in bed together. They could hear the yelling
from outside but they didn’t want to move.

            “Isobel
will take care of it, whatever it is. She always does,” Markus said.

            Jeff
lay next to him, feeling happy and safe. He held a fear in him that Markus
wouldn’t stay with him if he knew what happened to Sheila.

“Do you ever think about leaving?” he asked.

            “Sure.
All the time. It isn’t that bad here but I miss my friends and I wonder if they
have survived. What about you?”

            “I
think we should leave together. We could start a life together; make our own
rules.”

            “Sounds
nice,” Markus said as he turned to face Jeff and threw an arm over him.

Vaughn
had been watching the goings on from the Coopers’ old apartment. He could see
the girl clearly through a set of binoculars he’d brought over from his
apartment. The rain water had washed the dirt from her face and wetted down her
dirty hair, giving the illusion that she had just taken a shower. It had also
made her thin shirt almost disappear as it stuck to her skin. Vaughn couldn’t
believe she’d taken his advice from the note. He was about to unzip his pants
and enjoy the view when he heard someone knocking on his door across the hall.

            He
looked out the peephole of the Coopers’ door. “I’m over here,” he said as he
opened the door to Ben.

            Ben
came into Jill and Austin’s old apartment slowly. “What are you doing here?” he
asked, unable to hide the suspicion in his voice.

            “I
was outside earlier and I heard that girl over there so I came over here to see
what was going on. That’s all,” Vaughn said as he lifted the binoculars to
prove his story true.

            “Oh.
Ok. We could use those and a megaphone if you happen to have one. I’m going to
get her.”

            “Do
you think that’s a good idea?” Vaughn asked, trying to hide that he thought it
was a fantastic one.

            “We’ve
already decided it’s the right thing to do. Will you help or not?” Ben asked in
a rushed way.

            “Sure,”
Vaughn took off the binoculars and handed them to Ben who followed him to his
apartment for the megaphone. Vaughn could barely hide his smile.

Hayden
was really starting to feel the chill in her bones. She had a sweater in her
bag but it wouldn’t do her any good. She and the bag were soaking wet. She
hadn’t taken her eyes off of the building and she thought she’d seen people
gathering at one of the windows on the second floor. The sliding glass door of
that same apartment opened and someone came out onto the balcony, raising
something large up to their face. Hayden jumped up and started to wave her
arms. She moved as much as her fatigued and cold body allowed, splashing in the
puddles that had grown on the convenience store roof.

“Save your energy. We see you,” a woman’s voice reached her easily with
the amplification of a megaphone. The zombies below turned and started toward
the apartment building. “We are sending a man named Ben down to get you. I need
you to do what I say and do it quickly. Wave your left arm if you can do that
for me.”

The woman’s voice was stern but there was kindness in it. Hayden did as
she was asked and waved her left arm.

“Don’t make any noise. We have to draw them away from you and the only
way that will work is if you keep absolutely quiet. Wave your arm again if you
understand.”

Again Hayden did as she was asked.

“Pick up your stuff and get ready to climb back down. I’m going to keep
talking in this thing to keep them distracted,” Isobel explained.

Hayden picked up her rain-soaked bag; put her hair in the one rubber band
she had and waited for the cue to descend the ladder. Ben climbed down a fire
escape on the other side of the building and ran in a large circle behind the
office building across the street.

“Climb down to the street when the last of the dead have reached the
intersection. Then run behind the office building over there,” Isobel pointed
with the megaphone to the building that Ben had run behind. “Ben will meet you
on the other side. Stay close to him and do what he says.”

The last of the zombies, a little boy with a hole in his chest, reached
the intersection on their track toward Isobel’s voice. Hayden climbed down from
her temporary refuge on the rooftop and made her way behind the office building
to safety.

“Come on
you beasts, the freshest meat’s in here! I’ve never felt more desired in my
life and I haven’t showered in weeks. Aren’t you sick of eating the homeless
cats covered in fleas? Don’t you want to bite into something with a bit less
hair?” Isobel screamed into the megaphone. It felt great to yell at them and
see them react from a safe distance. Isobel was revving up to say some more
when Moira appeared out of nowhere and grabbed the megaphone from her. She had
a few things to say to them too.

“Or would you like some aged meat better? You have ruined my retirement
you mindless ghouls! Devoured the whole of my knitting circle and slaughtered
the pharmacist. You make me want to kill and that . . . frightens . . . me . .
.” Moira broke into a heavy sob. Edward, as though that sob was a summoning
bell, had arrived to carry her off in a loving hug back to their apartment and
a cup of tea.

Isobel raised the megaphone up to her mouth once more and was about to
begin another tirade when Ben opened her apartment door. Behind him the
teenager stood, wet and shaking but smiling from ear to ear.

“She looks a little crazy,” Rob whispered to Isobel.

“She’s just in shock,” Isobel whispered back. “Molly, can you take her in
the bathroom and help her get cleaned up?”

“Um . . . ok,” Molly thought too that the girl looked a little psychotic
with the grin she was wearing and she wasn’t sure why she had to be the one to
tend to her.

“I’ll get some extra towels and some dry clothes for her,” Isobel said as
she went into her bedroom.

Rob and Ben sat down and waited anxiously. It was exhilarating to meet
someone new when you’d seen the same faces for weeks.