Michael Ford: Z

“What about me?” Pandy asked. “Don’t leave me here.”

“Go outside,” Josh told her. “Wait on the front steps.”

“But my friends!” Pandy wailed.

“We said we’ll find them and take care of them,” Firecracker reminded her. He flicked his flamethrower on, and Pandy’s eyes grew wide.

“Go outside,” Josh said again. “Now.”

Pandy obeyed, running for the front door and disappearing outside. Josh checked his flamethrower to make sure it was on, then nodded for Firecracker to follow him.

“If I’d known we were going to be on a Zooey rescue mission, I would have picked the sewer assignment,” Firecracker said.

“Humans are humans,” Josh reminded him. “We get the same amount of credit whether we save a Zooey or the mayor.”

“I know,” said Firecracker. “But half the time they’re just lying. It drives me nuts.”

As they walked down the wide staircase that descended to the lower level, Josh looked for any signs of activity. Halfway down they came upon something that looked like a giant cotton ball. Josh bent down to look at it and saw that it was covered in blood.

“I’m guessing Rabbit didn’t make it,” Firecracker said.

“Looks that way,” Josh agreed. “Be careful. I have a feeling we’re close.”

They reached the lower level. The children’s section wasn’t as large as the upstairs, but it was big enough that they couldn’t see from one end to the other. The walls were papered with cheerful posters featuring favorite characters from children’s books, and the reading tables and chairs were less than half the size of those in the rest of the library. Josh felt like a giant as he walked through the room.

Suddenly a high-pitched whistling sound broke the silence. Josh looked up and saw a zombie shuffling toward them. It was a woman wearing a blood-splattered dress and shaking a finger at them. The whistling sound came from a jagged hole in her throat.

As the zombie got closer, Josh saw that she was wearing a name tag: MRS. JARVIS, CHILDREN’S LIBRARIAN.

“A meatbag librarian?” Firecracker said, sounding disgusted.

Josh aimed at her with his flamethrower. “Sorry, Mrs. Jarvis,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re overdue.”

“Josh!”

The noise made him jump. He ripped his helmet off and whirled around. “Emily, I thought we had a deal!” he yelled, expecting to see his sister standing behind him.

“Oh, really?” said his mother. “And what kind of deal would that be?”

Josh dropped the helmet and jumped up, trying to block the screen. “Mom,” he said. “I was just—”

“I see what you were doing,” she said. She walked over and turned the simulator off. The library disappeared.

“But Firecracker!” Josh protested. “And my points!”

“Josh, you know how we feel about that game,” his mother said. “You were supposed to be doing homework.”

“I was just playing for a few minutes,” Josh argued. “I don’t see why you make such a big deal about killing a few zom—”

He saw his mother’s face grow pale. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Sit down,” she interrupted.

Josh sat in the chair at his desk. His mother remained standing. “I really am sorry, Mom,” Josh said.

“Just—just listen for a minute,” his mother told him.

Josh nodded.

“I know that to you this is just a game,” his mother said. “You’re young. The war probably seems like ancient history. But for those of us who lived through it, it wasn’t a game.” Her voice caught.

“Aunt Lucy,” said Josh, feeling horrible for hurting his mother’s feelings.

His mother was quiet for a moment. When she looked at Josh, he saw sadness in her eyes. “She wasn’t much older than you are now when she turned,” she said. “I’ll never forget coming home from school that day.”

Josh didn’t say anything. His mother had never shared the details of what had happened. He found himself both wanting to know and wishing she wouldn’t tell him.

His mother continued. “We thought she just had the flu, so she’d stayed home for a few days. That day I’d gotten her homework assignments from her teachers so that she wouldn’t get behind. When I went into the kitchen, there was a pot on the stove. My mother had been making chicken soup.” She smiled. “She always made chicken soup when one of us didn’t feel well,” she said. “But it was boiling over, as if something had interrupted my mother while she was cooking.”

She took a deep breath. “That’s when I saw the blood,” she told Josh. “It started in the doorway and went into the dining room. I remember following it and wondering what it could be. My brain didn’t want to believe it was blood, even though I could smell it.” She shook her head. “I’ll never forget that smell, not as long as I live.”

Josh almost told her to stop, but his mouth wouldn’t work. His heart was beating more quickly, almost as if he were playing the game. He hated seeing his mother upset, but he wanted to hear the rest of the story.

“I followed the blood up the stairs to Lucy’s room,” said his mother. Her voice was shaky. She stopped speaking, and when she looked at Josh she seemed to be looking right through him at something only she could see. “My father was on the floor,” she said. “One of his arms had been ripped off, and his head was turned so that it looked like he was staring at me, but he was dead. My mother was lying on the bed. Lucy was kneeling over her. Her face and her nightgown were covered in blood.”

The room was completely silent as Josh waited for his mother to continue. She continued to look through him.

“What did you do?” Josh asked, his voice barely a whisper.

His mother shook her head. “I didn’t do anything,” she said. “Not for a long time. I told myself I was dreaming and that I would wake up and Lucy would be sitting peacefully in bed, eating chicken soup.”

She blinked, and now she was looking at Josh. “Then Lucy saw me,” she said, her voice harder. “She looked right at me, and when I saw her eyes, I knew my sister was gone. When she jumped off the bed and came at me, I ran to my room and shut the door. Lucy was screaming and grunting and clawing at the door like a rabid animal. I knew that if she got in, she would tear me apart. I had my cell phone, and I called 911 and told the operator that my sister had gone crazy. She stayed on the phone with me until the police got there.”

“The police?” Josh said.

“The Torchers hadn’t been established yet,” his mother explained. “They weren’t formed until things got worse. And when Lucy turned, we didn’t know about the zombies yet. I really did think she’d just gone crazy. When the police got there, I heard them shouting as they came upstairs. Then I heard Lucy run at them howling. And then I heard the shots.”

She closed her eyes as a tear slipped out. “A minute or two later someone knocked on my door and asked if I was all right,” she said. “I said I was, and unlocked the door. But they told me to lie down on the floor in the middle of the room, and when they came in they pointed their rifles at me until they could look at my eyes. Even then they took me to the hospital and kept me there for a week to see if I showed any symptoms of infection.”

Josh didn’t know what to say. He imagined his mother in the hospital, knowing that her entire family was dead, not knowing what she would do when she got out. She’d been younger than he was now. He didn’t know if he could handle something like that. He tried to find a way to apologize to his mother, but everything he thought of sounded stupid.

“It wasn’t just what happened to Lucy that was so terrifying,” his mother said after a while. “I mean at first it was, of course. But as the virus spread and changed, the fear became something worse. It was not knowing if, or when, you might get sick. It was not knowing which of your friends might be next. It was being afraid that the world was coming to an end.”