Nineteen

          Losing someone invokes the kind of grief that makes you want to curl up on the ground and sob until death finally comes to consume you. But in this case, when we lost Emily, it’s different. None of us other than Cole understand how to feel.

            Do we cry for someone we lost? In reality, Emily is still alive, living as a zombie.

            I let my hand hang out the window of the passenger seat and let the wind blow through the spaces between my fingers.

            In Cole’s eyes, she’s dead. At least, that’s what I’ve been assuming. How do you scale a loss of someone who is still moving and groaning? Are they still gone, or do you mourn the soul that is no longer there?

            Cole decided to leave Emily alive and loosened the fence so that if she really wanted to get out, she could. Of course we were already gone before we could see what she decided. Cole took the driver’s seat of the Hummer and started driving, not waking anyone up. Eventually they asked what was going on and why we had left, but Cole just said that we left her.

            Some part of me wanted to have a funeral, but what’s a grave with a body that is still moving?

            When we left the gas station, Cole turned to me, and made me make a promise. “If anything happens to me, Sloane,” he said, “I want you to come back here and find her. If I go, I want you to bring her to me. I don’t want to die without her up there with me.”

            I made the promise, but on the inside, I don’t think I’ll be ever to keep it.

            The drive is strangely quiet with the absence of Emily. If anyone speaks about her, we don’t address her by name. But most of the time, we just stay silent. Cole has finished up his crying; now opting for angry silence. Jack constantly looks as white as ghost and busies himself with Bullet or the toddler. Jagger watches me with curious eyes, knowing something’s changed, but he doesn’t confront me or speak.

            I still don’t know how I feel about him. In my past, he had a place in my heart. Now, in the present, I think he does, but it’s a different kind of presence. I still don’t have a name for it.

            I turn my thoughts to the future and wonder what’s going to happen when he get to Fort Saunders. Is it going to be safe? Will we be able to live there? Do they have food, clothes, everything we need to survive? More importantly, do they have room for us there?

            I debate asking these questions out loud but stop myself before I part my lips. Breaking the silence is not something I want to be the one to do.

            I lean my head against the seat and stare out the window, moving my hand different ways to catch the wind. For a while this entertains me, until the eyes looking at me from the backseat become too much. It’s like I’m a lab rat being constantly watched and observed. I can’t stand it anymore.

            “Stop staring at me,” I mutter.

            Jagger meets my eyes in the rear-view mirror. Houses flash on the glass of the back seat, making it difficult to see him clearly.

            “Who said I was staring-“

            Squealing wheels and a thump overload Jagger’s voice. Instantly I’m thrown forward and caught by my seatbelt. A gasp leaves my lips and Jack makes a whimpering sound at the impact before we settle.

            My eyes turn onto the hood of the Hummer where they grow wide, shocked at what happened. We hit something, or, in retrospect, someone. And not a zombie, either. The woman’s skin is normal, not the sickly pale that the infected give.

            “You hit a lady?” Jack gasps from the back seat. Finally, he sounds normal, even if his normal is completely terrified. “Oh my God, Cole, did you kill a human lady?”

            I look at the woman slumped over the yellow hood. Her blue, rose-patterned dress blows in the breeze slightly. Her elbow twitches.

            “She’s alive,” I note, still to shocked to move from how tense my muscles are.

            “I didn’t hit her!” Cole shouts, throwing his hands in the air above the steering wheel. “I swear to God! She ran in front of the Hummer!”

            “She ran in front?”

            “Did she want to die?”

            “What the hell is going on?”

            No one of us has answers for this question so instead each one of us opens the doors excluding Jack, who we designate as the baby and dog sitter.

            In the front, we stand in a circle around the lady, trying to figure out what to do. Should we touch her? Part of me thinks we should find a stick and poke her, just to make sure she’s not infected. Or to label her as dead.

            “I can back the Hummer up,” Cole suggests. I shrug at his idea and Jagger rolls his eyes.

            “She’ll face plant onto the ground.” He moves closer to the woman and raises his voice slightly. “Excuse me? Are you okay?”

            We stare in silence. The woman twitches slightly some more.

            “If you don’t answer I’m backing the Hummer up!” Cole threatens.

            The woman’s fingers twitch in their awkward position. Her hand looks like it might be broken.

            “Are you okay?” Jagger practically shouts. He grabs her shoulder and gives it a light shake before the woman suddenly jumps upright.

            In one, swift moment, she grabs Jagger’s shift and grasps it tightly. Her red hair is matted around her face and her green eyes are wild and red. She looks insane.

            “You need to help me!” she screeches. Jagger looks completely bewildered, both trying to pry himself away from the crazy lady and also back up, but her grasp is too tight. “My baby! My poor baby, she’s not feeling well!”

            “Your baby is sick?” I ask cautiously.

            The woman instantly lets go of Jagger and moves to me, grabbing my shoulders with her bony fingers. Her nails grip into my skin and I wince. As she speaks, her breath pours onto my face and I feel like I want to be sick.

            “She’s not feeling well, not at all! You need to help me!” She moves her head closer to mine and looks at me with wild eyes. “You need to help me!”

            “Let go of me,” I snap, trying to shake her off. “Get off of me!” I repeat as her nails start to break my skin. I look to the others for help and Cole comes over and grabs the woman’s shoulders and gives her a yank. Once I’m free he throws her a few feet away and she stumbles before catching her balance. I rub the half-moon wounds on my shoulder blades, angry.

            “Please, just help my poor baby,” she begs.

            Jagger takes a cautious step backwards and folds his arms across his chest. “We’ll help. Where is she? How do you know she is sick? Do you know what’s wrong?”

            The woman just points to one of the old looking houses in the village. Slowly, we both turn and this is when I notice that I’ve been ignoring the small, rapping sound.

            A little girl, no more than six wearing a broken plastic tiara is banging on the glass window. Her fist is bruised, becoming worse and worse as she tries to break the window. This girl is definitely not a baby and more than just sick.

            Her eyes look like black holes.

            No one says anything. We don’t know how this woman survived, especially with a zombie daughter and no one wants to break the news to her. She’s crazy, and telling her that her child is a part of the undead doesn’t seem like it will go over well.

            “She’s a zombie,” Cole snaps.

            Jagger and I stare at him with wide eyes. Is he stupid? Why would he say that when it obviously is going to invoke something that can’t be anywhere near good.

            The woman’s mouth hangs open. “What did you just say?” she asks in a low, threatening tone.

            Cole shrugs and glares at the old woman, challenging her. “She’s dead. She’s a zombie.”

            The woman lunges at Cole before we can grab her and in a few moments he’s screaming at her to ‘get the fuck off of me’ while she claws at his face.

            If I didn’t know any better, I would assume that she’s a zombie.

            Jagger throws her off of him and grabs Cole’s arm, heading towards the Hummer as the lady falls to the ground. We all rush into the car and slam the doors just as she gets up. Cole locks the doors three times.

            “What do we do?” he shouts.

            “Do we leave her?” Jack asks in a shaky voice. “She’s human! She’ll die!”

            “She’s crazy.” I watch as she rushes towards us and stops suddenly. She screams loudly and just stands there.

            “We’re not taking her,” Jagger says.

            So Cole drives the Hummer around her and we continue down the road. I look at the zombie girl as we pass, growing angrier as she pounds on the glass. I wonder if she will ever be strong enough to break it.