I Dream of Zombies, page 9
“Even you need to eat.” He pushed the bowl in my direction. “You’ve done a lot,” he said as I made my way through the bowl and the thick hunk of bread.
“Yeah, well, I agree a census is the first step, then I can create records for every member born, died, or married here. Track where they came from and so on.”
“So you can report it back to the commandant?”
My gut lurched, but I shook my head with slow moves. “No. But I do think it will help us pinpoint what might be a factor in the speed of their transition, variabilities and so on. For the sake of finding a vaccine or cure. I know Ramon was working on one, but it didn’t pan out. The culture didn’t survive the zombie virus, he said. The serums we brought in were also damaged during shipment. Likely that mad run across the alley.”
“And you blame me.” His face shuttered.
I started at Leroy’s words. “No! No, I don’t.”
“But since I told you, you’ve kept your distance.”
I chewed my lip. “It’s not so much that I don’t want to be with you or blame you. I was surprised, I admit, but it didn’t occur to me that our government or parts of it would be behind such a heinous act. You were acting under orders. That’s what soldiers do, right?”
He nodded, and I scanned his face. “But you didn’t want me to touch you.”
I laughed at that for just a moment, but the import of his reaction sobered me. Reaching out, I touched his hand. “Oh God, no. I want you so much, but since the virus I haven’t really connected with anyone. You scare me, Damien Leroy. Far too much for comfort.”
“And Dove?”
Ahhh. He’d been cool toward me since the night he’d caught us out on the porch talking. “Is a friend. A good friend, but there’ll never be more than that. He and I were discussing the world and our place. What we wanted. Stuff like that,” I said, hoping he’d stop asking. In truth, I’d been talking to Dove about him. Explaining the confusion of emotions I didn’t seem able to untangle.
“Okay. So, I’m supposed to help you in the afternoons. I get three hours in the morning with my crew then some other light duties later in the afternoon, but I’m yours between one and three. What do you want me to do?”
I blinked slowly. Strip me naked, kiss every inch of skin… Hold it right there, I told my brain. I’d wager that wasn’t what Elaine had planned.
“Um, I’m going to start creating the questionnaires. Once they’re printed, I need copies made. Could you do that?”
He pointed at the printer plugged into the corner. “Is that a set-and-forget model?”
I laughed. “Yeah, I think so. Let me write this up, then we can see together.”
* * * *
Leroy
Working mornings with the fifteen kids wasn’t easy. They were aged between seven and twelve, so their physical fitness was as varied as their education. I needed to remember that and start slow.
A couple were trained in martial arts or had at least the rudimentary knowledge. It would have been great if we’d been fighting ninjas, I guessed, having watched the way they threw themselves at their assigned tasks á la Bruce Lee.
Still, I talked to them about building themselves up, including a regime of lifting weights, food choices, and running to increase their stamina. Together, we trained in forms of hand-to-hand and also brainstormed ways to find weapons in a surprise attack. Interestingly enough, they formed a strong team, buddying up without direction so the strongest was there to assist the weakest member of their team.
They weren’t ready for more, and certainly not for leaving the camp. They weren’t ready to tackle zombies yet, except perhaps for those missing all their limbs, and even then, that was questionable at best.
They weren’t exactly impressed with my plans, but I’d continue down this path, because training them carefully meant when the skills were needed, they’d be second nature, and hopefully they’d be a cohesive unit.
The early afternoons were spent with Julia, as she now called herself—though I tended to still call her J, as did Dove—creating the documents and arranging timetables to meet with every person in the camp to collect the data necessary.
“So, what will you do with this information?” I asked.
“We’ll keep an accurate account of everyone who comes in and out, be able to update births, deaths, marriages, and so on. It will come into its own, trust me, especially when it comes time to remember those we’ve lost.”
“Is that why you ask if they’ve had children or do have?”
Julia nodded. “We know that in some cases whole families disappeared. In others, family members lost track of each other, and perhaps down the line, we’ll be able to share what we know and reunite families.”
Late afternoons were different. I’d been co-opted to help care for the animals. None of it was exactly hard work, with fetching water, collecting eggs, or even milking some cows. Everything was being done the old-fashioned way, but it felt good.
The small phone beside Julia squawked, and she picked it up as if it were a dangerous snake. “Uh, hello?”
Her countenance changed and tightened, cheeks flaming bright red, and her fingers wound tight around the receiver. So tight the knuckles of her fingers turned white. “No, sir. I’m not going to— No!” She slammed the receiver down as fury flared in her eyes. “Conceited bastard!” she yelled, and both her hands flew up, covering her face.
“What?” I demanded, but she shook her head.
Unable to prevent it, I reached out, took her wrists in my hand, and pulled. Her eyes now resembled pools of anguish. “I can’t tell you, Leroy,” she sniffed. “I mean I feel so damned dirty.”
“The commandant?” It was a guess, but of the educated variety, that she answered with a nod. “He wanted information?” I suggested, and she nodded again. “On me and what I know?”
“Yeah.”
I knew instantly what he’d asked her to do. All it took was a look at the way she slumped and tugged away from my touch.
I inhaled deeply then simply blurted it out. “He wants you to sleep with me for the information.”
Julia reared back, answering my question.
“Fucking bastard,” I ground out. “I’ll tell you anything when you ask, if I can answer. But not like that. You don’t need to…”
Now she dropped her face to her hands and cried in silence. The way her body shuddered cracked my heart in two. I damned the commandant and Allan to hell for their careless and demeaning handling of a strong woman. They’d stripped her naked with their crude demands, reducing her to a messy lump of human misery.
“I know you wouldn’t do that, Julia.”
“But that’s…” She stumbled, cleared her throat, and tried again. “He asked me before I came here, Leroy. It’s why I left Queanbeyan. I couldn’t stay once he’d made that suggestion. When I said no, he said there’d probably be no place for me there.” Her voice quavered, and I had to curl my hands into tight fists as bursts of energy zipped through my nervous system.
“You tell me what he wants to know, baby, and I’ll help if I can,” I crooned, hyperaware that she needed to be treated with gentleness and respect right now.
She sniffed. “I didn’t wait to hear.”
I grinned, because she hadn’t lost her spine even though he’d treated her with obvious contempt. “Atta girl.”
She scrubbed at her face. “That’s easy for you to say. You drift here and there without ties or friends.”
Her words sobered me. “Yes and no. I do that because of the mistakes I made. Because I’m a coward, J.” I knew it was the truth now; a realization I’d made with shame attached.
Now she tugged on my hands. “Still. Maybe that’s what I should do.”
I shook my head, well aware that in no way would she feel better about being a drifter. “No, J. You’re reliable and—”
Her bitter laugh stopped me. “Don’t think I’m some kind of hero. I’m not. I just made the best of a bad situation. In the end, leaving Queanbeyan behind was easier than I expected. I just…” I heard her breathe heavily. “I just left.”
For a moment I considered her words. I could take them at face value, but I wouldn’t. I knew this woman now and understood the hurt which drove her away from the relative safety she’d inhabited.
“Leroy?”
“Yeah, J?”
“I could go with you.”
Oh my God! The words hit hard, like a sucker punch in the gut. I wanted her to. I wanted to have sex with her, it was true, and to keep her close. My body ached for her day and night. Still, a seed of honesty forced me to shake my head. “No, J. Because you’re a believer. A member of a family and a team player. I’m not.”
“Bullshit. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be helping the kids. They rely on you to be there for them. You set that up. You taught them you were their leader. You’re the biggest team player I know.”
Nausea threatened to swamp me, because I knew she was right. Somehow, and at some time, I’d become one of the crew again. A leader and a follower. It filled the holes I’d attempted to ignore deep inside me.
Pushing up from the chair and away didn’t stop the truth. Couldn’t make it easier to hear, because the last time I’d been that, I’d failed. I’d been instrumental in the death of millions. All because I’d made poor choices.
“No, J. I’m not.” There was a hoarse edge to my voice, and I couldn’t disguise the way my body betrayed the fear that welled deep in the pit of my belly.
“Leroy?” She shoved away from her chair, arms twining around me. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head as the sudden sensation of regret and guilt swamped me. “I caused this.”
Her fingers dug into my back and worried me like a ragdoll. “No. They would have done it anyway, whether you were involved or not. And it’s not like you could have said no, right? I mean, you were recruited to that team for a reason. They needed you and your skills. They didn’t tell you everything before the mission, you were just sent out there without all the knowledge to do their work.”
The lump wedged in my chest shrank a little. “I just… I hate knowing that I played a part in this.”
“It’s okay to feel sad and awful. You just have to find a way forward though. To meet every day with the best of intentions and leave the world better when you’re done.”
There lay the crux of the matter. Leave it better. If only.
Chapter 8
Julia
My shift ended with me helping in the community gardens. I’d never really had the opportunity to get my hands in the dirt. Before everything happened, I lived in a high-rise apartment, and my mum had been the gardener when I lived at home—always her domain. It felt good and right to sink my fingers into the soil, though I needed a lot of assistance.
Elaine dropped down beside me. “You need to pull these ones. They’re weeds.” Her deft movements were hypnotic, and I watched then followed her lead.
“I rather like this.”
She laughed. “My grandmother, who left me the cottage, taught me a lot about gardening. She always said that having blooming things around her lifted her spirits. And speaking of spirits…” She rocked back on her heels. “The commandant contacted Liam. Said you’d been insubordinate. Want to tell me about that?”
I groaned and noted for the first time that everyone else in the patch had left. “I, um… He wanted me to get information for him. To sleep with Leroy to obtain it and report back. I refused.”
She didn’t betray any shock, and her hand slid over mine, relieving me of some of the fears that gnawed at me. “Some people will never understand that leadership isn’t about issuing orders that make their subordinates feel dirty. Our camp doesn’t work like that, so while I’ll talk with Liam, I know he’ll agree that you’ve done nothing wrong. You don’t need to use sex to gain information or favor here. However, I have to ask, what information was he particularly after?”
This was tricky ground. I didn’t know what Leroy had told them specifically, and I felt it wrong to share such intelligence. “I think it would be best if I asked Leroy to tell you.”
She nodded. “About the mission he was sent on? The inoculation of the water system?”
I nodded, even more discomforted.
“That’s okay. Leroy and Liam have discussed it. The scientists who went with you to Queanbeyan clued Ramon in on most of their findings before they left. They also indicated they’d heard of zombies who were more evolved.”
My gut clenched. “Evolved? Like how?”
Elaine shook her head. “They heard they were communicating. In a rudimentary way, but nonetheless working together.”
If they worked together, it meant nothing good for humanity. I rubbed my brow. “What about—”
“I don’t know any more. Just that Ramon heard the information and has been spending more hours than ever in the laboratory we put together for him. He’s working now on a vaccine so no one else becomes a zombie. But when he heard about this, he said we need some tissue samples to chart any changes in the virus. Mutations. We’re going to need some samples of the evolved zombies, and Liam hoped you and Leroy would join the team. We need reliable people who know what they’re doing, and you both seem to be quite skilled.”
My breath caught in my throat. For a non-militaristic camp what they were asking was…odd. “I don’t want to kill anymore, Elaine.”
Elaine laid a soft hand on mine. “We understand that. We’re hoping you’ll be able to bring us some fresh specimens without needing to harvest from the zombies. Intelligence from south of here says that with the initial frenzy and glut of fresh humans over, they turned on each other. They’ve changed again since then, we think, as the communication grows more effective. You saw that with the incident I believe? The ones involving the dogs. They hunt in packs, because it means they have a greater chance of success. We need to know what changes have taken place in their DNA. What has caused the changes from sentient and thinking humans to ravening beasts who crave the flesh of the living. Ramon said he’s not sure there is a single strain because of the way the initial virus was spread and individualized evolutions, so we need to know more before we can create an effective vaccine. We need to be sure of just how many strains there are. We can only do that by getting our hands on fresh samples, Julia.”
What she asked was both simple and yet also difficult. I wanted to help, but I’d laid down my rifle, found peace, and could once again sleep at night without the constant wearing dreams. If I stepped back into that world, would I lose the last remaining remnants of myself?
Yet, what they asked was small, and they asked instead of ordering.
Confusion warred, but she needed an answer. I inhaled, the rich, earthy scent filling my senses. They’d given me this and so much more. A sense of belonging. Of being useful. Time to take a chance, I thought. “Yes.”
Elaine gazed into my eyes. “You don’t have to.”
“I know.” I honestly did, and that settled the nerves that jumped in my belly.
“All right then. I’ll let Liam and Leroy know. By the way, Liam is calling a meeting of the single members tomorrow morning at eight AM. He’ll come to your complex.”
With so much to consider I didn’t ask why, simply returned to my task.
We worked in silence for a while, until Elaine levered herself up. “I think that’s sufficient for today.”
I made my way back to the small apartment now I called home. For the first time since this contagion had been released, I sought silence and something more.
Inside the rooms, I headed for the shower, shucked off my clothes, and stepped within the cubicle, welcoming the water that washed over me. Metaphorically, it was like being reborn, but while it made me feel more comfortable it didn’t quell the sudden emptiness I needed to fill.
I toweled with quick movements and headed for the bedroom beyond and slid into clean clothing. Scraping back my hair into a careless ponytail, I caught sight of myself in the mirror.
The gaunt look I’d sported weeks ago had disappeared in the scant month I’d been here. No streaks of gray that many had gained since the outbreak marred my hair. It was as if I’d been ‘untouched’, but I knew better.
“At least I lost all those extra pounds I was carrying before the virus,” I muttered, surveying my flat stomach.
Sliding into the shoes, I left my apartment and hurried down below.
Already a group from our block had gathered, and the scent of cooking meat wafted as did something else I hadn’t smelled in a long time.
“Who found wine?” I couldn’t suppress the squeak of surprise.
“We were saving it for a rainy day. That’s today,” called a woman seated at the table.
I must have screwed up my nose, because suddenly Leroy was there, running his finger down it.
“What?” I demanded.
“We’ve survived a year since the first known outbreak was televised,” Leroy whispered.
I gaped at him and turned blindly to the others gathered. “Really?”
“May fourth was the day it was first detected, and the indicators televised. On the fifth, the airports were shut down.”
The chill in the air nipped at me, and I turned back to Leroy. “Wow. Today is the fourth of May?”
He nodded. “Yep, has been all day. Didn’t you see on your computer monitor?”
I shook my head and jerked back when something touched my hand. I was being handed a glass of wine. I accepted it with shaking fingers.
“We’re celebrating. We’ve survived the first year, and David had some wine stashed, which he shared. Next year it’ll be strictly home brew unless we find an abandoned bottle shop.”
The ridiculousness of that comment made me laugh. “Fair enough,” I sputtered once the outburst passed.
We raised a glass and toasted our survival before the meal was served, then enjoyed several more glasses after.
* * * *
Leroy
