The Undead Truth of Us, page 15
They started jumping and chanting the lyrics, and then they took my hands, making me jump, too. We hopped around the fire, mocking the flames. Each bounce, I felt higher and higher, drifting. They danced, and I mimicked them, letting my gooey limbs flow side to side in the air like an anemone.
When the next song came on, they screamed out the lyrics, scaring the bats, and I swore I saw their souls leave their bodies. I tried singing along, making the words up as I went. Charlie squeezed me tightly, pressing her face against mine, and I truly felt like I’d found my people.
It was like they’d been waiting here, stuck in this painting, and I just needed to get here, years ago. I needed to find them and swim in this never-ending universe until it all made sense again.
The colors smashed together; the world spun. I was no longer in my morphed realities. I was closer to the center of the earth. And we laughed and laughed. Dancing and crashing into the ground.
“Z,” Charlie breathed, forehead sweating, the yellow making her face glow. “Damn it. I’m happy you are here. I mean it.” Her words broken. “Told myself. Again. To tell you, and I’m doing it. And we’re okay. Happy you are here.”
“Me? You’re happy I’m here? I’m really happy to be here. Thanks for making me feel welcomed,” I said, the words drifting to her, the world slightly wobbly.
She smiled, but I rushed to speak again.
“How—how are you so cool? It’s like. You know. Everyone loves you.”
She put her hand to the sky, inspecting it, and I did the same with mine. The warm colors twisting in my palm like the flames.
“I don’t know, Z. I’m just being myself.”
Mika jumped beside us. “What are you ladybugs doing? Up!” she demanded, stretching her hands out to us. “No time for talking. We dance!”
And I wanted to dance, but it was nice connecting with Charlie again. She seemed so human. We got up anyway, dancing, doing it all over again. And it was…it was everything.
After a breath, I felt a pair of arms around me, lifting me up and taking me away from the crowd. I spun around to find Bo. He towered over me with a smile so big it made my cheeks hurt, and it reminded me of the dream I’d had.
He lured me into The Starry Night, his hands around my waist, his lips pressed to the side of my throat. The blood in my veins pumped twice as fast, and my body tingled.
Didn’t want to breathe or alter this moment. Just waited. Waited for what would come next.
“Last night, I told the stars about you.” He said it in my ear, his lips brushing my lobe.
I swallowed first. “What did they say?”
“They told me to wait for you.” His words bled into the air, and in the darkness, his eyes were on me, staring at my mouth.
“And how did you respond?”
“I told them you were worth the wait.”
My lips parted, but nothing came out. Had he always wanted to say this? Was this a real, real thing? Were these real, real words?
It was Bo, he was alive, and I could totally speak to him, try to explain these newfound feelings, but I didn’t know how.
All I knew was that I wanted him to stay this close to me. I felt so red and pink, and I was unsure of where to place these colors.
Our chests pressed together, and we swayed to the music in the background, our breathing heavy. It felt like I was dancing backward with him, except we were always on time, never missed a beat, and each outward spin led me to his smile again.
And what was this feeling? My ribs solidified, my feet grew sunflowers, my saliva multiplied. I wanted him so much closer to me, but we were as close as we could get. Maybe these symptoms were signs of being in like?
Because love…it was too soon for that…right?
Bo and I slowed our moving, and we were alone in space, our eyes meeting, and I anticipated the moment when he’d warp into the unmentionable thing. He always had, and I knew he would. He had to.
But instead, he opened a starship, and in an instance, we were in our own galaxy. The stars twinkling magnificently for us.
Bo pressed his thumb into my cheek, and I held my breath.
And whatever would come next, I wanted him to know that it was okay. That I wanted this, too, so I reached my hand to his face, my fingertips tracing his jaw, following the way it curved. His dark eyes watched me, beaming, until he closed the distance between the two of us.
He kissed me, our lips smashing together like a colorful collision, and we perished almost, falling limp into this novelty. I’d never felt so much energy in my life.
My heart sank into my shoes and poured out my toes in spurts. And I wanted to be so wrapped up in him, but I couldn’t say it. I wouldn’t.
Chemically, he moved me more than anyone had, more than this dance had, and this was the most human I’d been, ever.
For once, the fire stopped flickering and the moon was so bright, it ignited me. I kissed Bo back like a storm, hands on the nape of his neck, crawling up to his curls, tugging at them. Closer. Bo pulled me into him, holding my face, his nose pressed to the side of mine. Breathing. Barely breathing. He was the gravity I wanted to fall into.
And I kept falling,
down,
down,
down,
until we landed in the wet grass, drinking all the air from each other’s lungs. And I could keep going, never stopping, but for some reason, I laughed….
Bo laughed with me, looking at me like he was seeing for the first time. “What’s so funny?”
I covered my hands with my face and rolled away from him, my back against the ground. “I didn’t expect that,” I said, catching my breath, and I still couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening. Bo kissing me sparked so many questions, but when I sorted it out, it came down to one: Why?
I said it out loud then. “Why?” I asked, pressing the grass between my fingers. “Why’d you kiss me?”
“I’ve wanted to do that since the first moment we met.”
The grass snapped from my pulling. “Why didn’t you?” I asked, realizing that this like thing was a real thing, realizing that maybe it’d been there, under the surface, and I didn’t notice it grasping at me until now.
“We just weren’t there yet,” he said, truth spilling from his eyelids. His palms were sweaty when I took his hand, weaved our fingers together.
“I’m glad you didn’t. It probably would have scared me away.”
Bo grinned. “It’s funny you say that. You always have this wide look in your eyes…afraid that I’ll eat you or some jazz.”
I tried not to gasp. “There have been times when you’ve looked like a monster.”
“Hey.” He nudged. “Monsters are humans, too.”
I turned to my side, sharing the biggest grin with him.
He turned to his side, too. “Z, there’s this energy about you that I can’t place. But it feels right, and I know I haven’t said this, but you’re one of the best people I’ve ever met. And I want more of it.” He looked down. “I want more moments like this with you.”
I grabbed him, kissing him, creating more moments. His palm slid to the low of my back, pulling me into his ribs. We moved and breathed in the same way, stitching our worlds together.
This was never the plan. Never part of my ambitions, but Bo was so great and goofy, and he was here. There was no want to undo this.
And if Mama could see me…
Pushed the thought away. Didn’t want to think about it.
Not now.
But if she could see me, she’d be proud.
When we got off the ground, I jumped on Bo’s back. “Time for another adventure,” I said.
“Where to?” He hiked me up, and we did a quick spin, my arms out.
I pointed to the emptiness ahead of us. “To the moon and never back!”
Bo kicked up dirt and howled. “To the moon!” he said, and he ran fast, the stars blurring. He kept going until he tripped on something, sending us both to the ground.
We laughed, and my phone vibrated in my pocket.
I never wanted any of this to end.
MY HEAD HURT SO BAD when I stood. It was maybe an hour later, and we were at the campfire, listening to Jesus tell some crazy story about El Chupacabra, and I was presumably two more drinks in. Didn’t catch the whole story, but it gave me chills, and I’d forgotten why I stood, so I sat back down.
Think.
The flames flickered with haste, creating shadows on Jesus’s face that made him look haunting, and when he spoke, I heard movement behind him. It was quick, rustling in the grass. I stretched my neck and stared down the darkness, trying to make out shapes, but the world kept spinning around me. It was hard to focus.
Croak.
Charlie rubbed my back and asked if I was okay. Her breathing was low, but I didn’t look up to see what expression she had on her face. I kept my eyes on the blob in the dark abyss. Focused on what looked more like a figure now, gradually closing in on us. A shadow of a man shaped like a tree.
A man or a tree?
Swallowed. Swallowed the slime in my throat. Blinked to see if anyone saw what I saw. My eyes watered. They were laughing at Jesus. He rolled his hips in a big circle. Slow, then fast.
“Dude, is anyone recording this?” Rico asked.
Someone moved, and the dark figure…it twisted, twirling, mixing nothing into nothingness.
It hissed, and the hair pricked on my arms.
Tried to speak, but my lips felt numb. Sat up, and my stomach turned. I coughed, feeling something in the back of my throat. God, what was that?
I heard Bo move on the other side of me. “Z, are you okay?”
Coughed again, holding my hand to my throat. Then I felt the sludge making its way up, blurring my vision, and I got out of the way just in time to vomit.
Gah, the smell. Tears spilled from my eyes. “Ughhh.” My words shook my body, and I was so thirsty.
Bo was beside me, closer. He grabbed at my shirt. “Oh shit, Z. Let me help you.”
I didn’t move. I felt it coming again, and then Charlie was beside me, trying to force a plastic water bottle into my hands.
“Drink this,” she said, her voice somewhat amused. Why?
“Can’t.” I shook my head, and I could hear hushed voices—one of which was Rico’s.
“Your girl can’t hang,” I heard him say. His deep voice rumbled with laughter after that.
“Shut the hell up!” Bo yelled.
The vomit came again, harder this time, and my throat burned of booze and bile and chips. I couldn’t remember how much I drank, but it didn’t seem like enough for this.
I wanted to cry, but it was bad enough they had to see me hunched over and spilling out my insides. Didn’t want to be remembered this way.
Charlie whispered something, and I wanted the world to stop spinning so fast. Wanted the hushed voices to stop growing.
Bo waited, his hand on my arm, his fingers rubbing my skin. “It’s okay,” he said. “Just take your time. Don’t force it.”
“We have to get her to her tent,” Charlie said. “She needs to lie down.”
“Give her a second,” Bo whispered. “She’s got this.”
He was right. I had this…well, I kinda had this, but I didn’t want to lie down. I didn’t want to be the girl who left the party first—I’d already been her. Bad idea, Charlie.
I drank some of the water, but even the water tasted awful. “Ew,” I mumbled, and Bo laughed. It tasted like La Croix, and I spat it out, only to take another sip from the bottle. Would rather have that on my tongue than the taste of vomit in my mouth.
“I can take care of her,” Bo said to Charlie.
Charlie rubbed my back. “You need my help,” she said.
“No, I got it,” he said.
Charlie hissed, “But she’s my friend, too.” There was a pause, and then a huff, her voice lighter now. “C’mon, Abey. Don’t fight me on this. Please…”
Felt it then, the sudden sleepiness, the heaviness in my eyes, and my limbs giving way to gravity. Charlie was right. Maybe I should lie down, take a break. It would be fine. We were friends now, we could move past this, but we were at a standstill—me hurled over the side of this chair, and an awkward tension floating in the air among the three of us.
Someone shifted.
“Really?” Charlie said, and her voice cracked. Maybe it was a look she saw, or a whisper that was shared.
Bo smacked his lips. “Charlie, don’t do that…. Just don’t.”
Another shift, and when I finished the water, Bo helped me to my feet, slinging one of my arms across his shoulders. “I’ll take care of you,” he mumbled, my face close to his chest, safety.
Charlie placed my other arm around her shoulder, and in less seconds than I cared to count, I was sandwiched between two people I never thought I’d be sandwiched by.
Fun.
“I’m helping,” she insisted, and Bo sighed.
My stomach flipped with each step, and I looked behind me, past the fire, trying to see if the thing was still there. Nothing.
Where’d it go?
In the night, past the van, Charlie looked my way, but her eyes were on Bo.
His gaze was fixed on what was ahead. Small steps, the silence growing.
I leaned against Bo as Charlie unzipped the tent, and he mumbled something to me I didn’t quite catch. Just a rhythm in his chest, a rasp. Then she undid my shoes, and both of them helped me inside.
The ground was uneven, and I shuffled around, trying to get comfortable on the tent floor.
Bo leaned in, pulling a blanket over me. He swayed a little, the alcohol making him blurry. “If you need anything, anything at all, just shout my name. I’ll be here. Okay?”
I waited for the glow of his word bubble, but it didn’t come. A darkness slid behind his irises instead.
“Okay.”
He smiled, but it was broken. His lips peeling and twisted. “Pinky promise.” His voice breathy as he held his finger up.
My pinky found his, and they locked.
“Bo, come on,” Charlie pressed, and the top of the tent moved. “Leave her be already.” She stuck her head in, and Bo moved out of the way. “Sleep well, Z. Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” she said, and it made me nervous.
“O-okay.” I half waved, and in a blink, the tent was zipped, and they were both gone.
The big orange thing seemed to swallow me, and I felt hot and cold at the same time. Checked my phone, the light so bright my eyes watered. A text from Auntie E:
Shit. Those words never meant anything good. Ever. But what did she want to talk about now? Was she just gonna flake again? Pull the job card? Did something come up? Did she need money?
Rested my head with a sigh. A blink, and a flicker. It only took seconds. But then I was in the field outside the tent, standing under the light of the crescent moon. The tree line was closer to me than it should have been, creating a fence of different-sized trees before me.
And I didn’t know how I got here, but…
My right hand was extended in front of me, and resting in my palm was a warm, beating heart. The ruby blood seeped through the ventricles, down my arm, and into the grass. The blood splattered rhythmically as it landed on the ground, and the sound reminded me of the vibrating pulse in the breakdown of “Thriller.”
My attention was drawn upward when I heard something else. It was slow at first, but then the lower tree branches in front of me rustled away from one another, and Bo appeared, entering the clearing.
I rose to the tips of my toes, ecstatic to see him. I missed him. There were so many more questions I had.
Bo stared at me, frozen. His face morphed from joy to fear when he saw what I held.
He yelled, “No, Z! No! Get away from here!”
My brows clustered in the middle of my forehead. “What?” I said, but the word was inaudible, and the music grew louder in my head.
Bo tried to move toward me, but thick green vines burst from the ground, and they tied themselves around his legs, up his torso, to his neck. He reached for me, and when I tried to go to him, he begged me to stop, his palms facing me.
Bo gagged and choked, and when he coughed, a sunflower crawled out of his mouth, petal by petal, then dropped to the ground, crumpled.
Bo, I tried again. But nothing.
Then his skin ripped away from his bone, and he morphed into the undead, his red-and-black shirt tattered, his eyes sunken, and his skin emerald green and gray.
His mouth pooled with dark black gunk, and I cried for it to stop, but it would not relent.
It was harder to breathe. I heaved, my chest jolting, and the trees rustled again, their branches shaking, leaves rushing to the ground.
Zombies poured from the shadows, moving to the sound of the pulse.
Throbbing. Throbbing.
They trudged forward, one foot in front of the other, bones snapping, shoulders bouncing. Gusts of thick fog followed them, hiding some of their stares, revealing some of their shredded smiles.
They groaned into the night, the sound echoing off their wet bones.
“Why?” Bo cried out, and it was the clearest thing I’d ever heard him say in his zombie form.
I couldn’t understand what Bo wanted from me, or what I had done. But Bo seemed farther and farther away from me as the zombies passed him, closing in on me.
Tried to make a run for it, but the same vines that had gotten Bo slithered up my ankles, anchoring me in place.
As I stared in horror at the vines inching up my legs, I noticed a big, gaping hole in my chest where my heart should be. It spilled with blood, making me warm, then hot. The cut was jagged, as if someone had ripped the organ straight from my chest, and I looked at the heart again, then back at my chest.
It was my heart that I held in my hand.
My thumping, wheezing heart.
Grunting, I tried to draw my right arm back toward me, but it was locked in place, extending outward.
Why would I do such a thing? Why would I rip my own heart out of my chest? And when, when did this happen?
The heart thudded faster when I looked up, practically flopping in my hand like a fish without water. And I tried to move again, to lift my knees, but the unmentionables circled around me with their scorched arms reaching, reaching, reaching and grabbing at my heart.
