Em Garner - Contaminated

His mother had opened the door only enough to peek out. She was so skinny, she probably could’ve squeezed through that crack, but nothing else could. I knew she knew who I was, but she asked, anyway.

“Please,” I’d begged. “My sister…”

“No. I can’t, Velvet. Where are your parents?” She should’ve known. If we were there on her porch, it had to be because our parents had been Contaminated. They were Connies. They were danger.

I knew I shouldn’t blame her, but I did.

They are mindless and violent, they are dangerous and brutal and horrifying. They are scary. But they are still human, not undead monsters. They can be held off. They can be killed. They can be defended against. She could’ve helped us, easily. Their house had all the bottom windows boarded up. Connies can’t climb ladders or rip off boards. They’re stupid and uncoordinated. All anyone had to do was hole up and wait—the president had already ordered the massive containment forces that would begin the restructuring. Only a few weeks after we went to Tony’s house begging for shelter, the Centers for Disease Control had pinpointed the source of the Contamination, protein water produced by a single company. ThinPro. It had something to do with the protein in the water, taken from a contaminated source. Basically, they’d all gotten something like mad cow disease, but worse. Much worse.

“I think she’s in bed,” Tony adds. “I think it’s okay.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t pay attention to the time.”

I know I should tell Tony about the Connie that almost got me, or at least the trig homework that’s still sitting in front of me. He’d help me with that, even if he can’t do anything about the fact my heart is still skipping beats every once in a while, and my hands are still sweating.

“I don’t think she heard the phone ring,” he says.

Boys don’t talk the way girls do. When I first started going out with Tony, we’d spend hours on the phone with me telling him about everything I’d done in the hours I wasn’t with him. I’d talk, he’d listen. In the background I’d hear the stutter of gunfire from one of his video games, hear him mutter “Yesssss!” into the phone, though he wasn’t replying to me.

I don’t have as much to say as I used to. I see Tony in school every other day when we share an English lit class, but the time we used to spend together during study hall and in the hours after school, at football games, at dances, all that’s gone. I work instead of going on dates. Even if his mother did allow him a little more freedom, the curfew’s in effect starting at 8 o’clock. Even if I didn’t have Opal to take care of, there’d be little time to spend with Tony. It’s no wonder he’s been complaining.

“I miss you.” I mean it.

Tony and I have known each other since elementary school, but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I started thinking he was cute. We hung out at the pool the summer between sophomore and junior years, and by the time we went back to school, we were a couple. He’s funny, he’s smart, he’s sweet. He’s good. Tony’s good, and I don’t want to lose him, because he’s the only good thing I have left in my life.

“Ditch work tomorrow,” he says at once. “I’ll cut out of fifth period. Meet you someplace. We’ll hang out.”

I want to so much, it hurts. “I can’t.”

“Velvet.” Tony has a way of saying my name, so soft and low, it sounds like my name is made of velvet. He knows he can get me to do just about anything. “C’mon. What’s one day?”

One day’s less pay, that’s what it is. The chance of losing my job, too. Just because it’s crap work doesn’t mean there aren’t a dozen other people waiting for it. I hate that I’m only seventeen and thinking this way. I hate that Tony’s a few months older than I am, and yet can’t understand why I do.

He lived through the Contamination, too. He saw the news reports, the looting and rioting in the street, or at least the aftermath of them. He’s seen Connies lurching down the streets with people running and screaming in front of them, or chasing after to hunt them down. Tony’s seen the memorials the same as I have, as everyone has. But I feel like he hasn’t really lived through it the way I have, with his two parents, his house, his cell phone, with nothing changed, really, except a few more rules and some inconveniences to deal with. So he can’t get pizza bagels from the supermarket, or stay up late watching soft-core skin flicks on cable. So he can’t be on the streets after a certain time, and so there are soldiers on every corner. He never seems to notice.

There’s a really big distance between us that was never there before, and I hate that, too.

“I miss you, too,” he whispers into the phone. “I want to see you. Really bad.”

“I don’t have to work until the afternoon on Saturday. And no school. Maybe you could come over here? We could play some games. Hang out.”

Tony hesitates. “Yeah. Opal will be there, right?”

“Yeah, well… she lives here, Tony. I can’t just get rid of her.” I can’t send her out to play in the yard or anything like that. There are other kids in the apartment complex, other Conorphans like us, and they don’t go out to play, either. I know why he’s asking, too, and that annoys me. Like it’s not enough to just come and hang out with me; he has to know if we’ll have time to be alone, like making out is the only reason he wants to see me.

“Right, right. I know that. Well… I’m not sure if I can come over. My mom…”

Other teenage boys would probably lie to their moms and come over, anyway. With the new bus system, it would be even easier for him to get here, since he wouldn’t need a ride from her. I don’t think Tony will lie to his mother, though. I mean, what makes him so good can also be annoying.

“You could ask her, Tony. C’mon. It would be fun.”

“She doesn’t like me going to your place,” Tony says. “She knows your parents aren’t there.”

“What if my mom were here? Would she care then?” I say boldly.

Tony laughs, sounding uncomfortable. “Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious, Tony. If my mom were here, she couldn’t say there were no parents. Would she let you come over to hang out then?”

Tony doesn’t say anything for so long, I think he’s hung up. “Velvet, that’s not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be funny.” I draw in a breath, then another. I can hear the smile in my voice and wonder if he can, too. “I found her. I found my mom. They said it’ll be about a week before she can come home, but that’s not so long—”

Tony breaks into my babbling. “Stop it.”

“Stop what? I thought you’d be happy for me.” My voice rises, and I look toward the bedroom where Opal’s still sleeping.

“But your mom’s… one of them.”

“She’s my mother, Tony.” The words come out stiff and sharp. “I found her. She’s coming home.”

“But you can’t bring her home!” He sounds shocked. “Really, Velvet? Are you crazy?”

“It’s safe. She’s been neutralized. They all are.” I think of the Connie coming at me from out of the bathroom and force away a shudder. They’re getting fewer and fewer, though, the wild ones. Somehow this makes it worse.

“Gross.”

I know I heard him right, but my jaw still drops. “It’s not gross! It’s my mom!”

“But she’s not,” Tony says. “She’s a Connie, Velvet. I mean… they’re not… she won’t be…”

“You wouldn’t say that,” I tell him coldly, “if it were your mother.”

“Well, it’s a good thing it’s not, then.” This voice comes across the line from Tony’s mother herself. She must’ve been listening since he picked up the phone, silent and skanky in the background. What a bitch. “Tony, hang up now.”