INFECtIOUS (16 page)

After wiping
down the bathroom, I began a careful inspection of the bedroom. I was
meticulous in my search. I stripped the sheets from the bed—that he had remade
perfectly—and shook them to be sure there wasn't anything tucked in them. I
almost wondered if he had ever been there at all. There was no trace of him. At
that point, I might have even liked it if the sheets had smelled like he did
the first night, that cat litter odor. I had been so disgusted that first night
at the thought of cleaning up after him and now here I was burying my face in
his pillow hoping for some evidence that he had been there at all.

I dusted the
furniture and
nicknacks
, my disappointment growing
with each swoosh of the dust cloth. There was nothing there. It was like a
ghost had stayed in that room. There wasn't
so
much as
a stray hair left behind. With the room thoroughly clean, even under the bed,
my depression overwhelmed me.

He was gone and
I hadn't been anything more than an irritation to him. I looked the room over,
one last
time,
to be sure it was ready for the next
guest who came our way. On my way out, I noticed some books sticking out a
little on the bookshelf door. I walked back in to push them back into place.
One of the books was Little Women. I pulled it out, thinking maybe I'd read it
again, and a piece of paper tucked in next to it fell to the floor. I had
already given up any hope of finding anything from Matt and I almost crumpled
it up to throw it away.

Then I noticed
what it was.

It was a simple
sketch done in pen. Not much more than a doodle, but someone with talent had
drawn it. It was of a girl with long curly hair. It was just her head and neck
and all around her were beautifully sketched vines, ivy vines. And around her
neck was a small cross. It was me! The ivy, the cross, I knew it was me. He had
doodled
me. He thought about me. My heart was
pounding, my stomach felt
sick,
my eyes filled with
tears of happiness, sadness, and relief that maybe he cared—

"Are you
ok, Ivy?" Harmony asks with concern etched into her face.
 

I snap out of my
reverie and brush away the tears that had carried over from daydream to real
life. Harmony, assuming my emotions are still from fear, leans over to give me
her second hug of the day. I accept the hug and the comfort and try to quit
sniffling and pull myself together. I can't tell her about him. She wouldn't
get it and it's pointless. He's gone. If I talk about it, it will take longer
to get over it. I need to move on to the bigger, more important issue at
hand.
 

"I think
priority number one is finding this hole in the fence and reporting it," I
say with more gumption than I feel.
 

To be honest,
the last thing I feel like doing is walking the perimeter, which may or may not
have a dangerous hole somewhere, while enduring the catcalling that always
ensues from the zombies on the other side.
  

"I'll come
with you. I don't have to be home for a couple hours. Told mom I'd be searching
for a new book in the U.R. library, but that can wait."

Thank God she's
coming with me. I'd be too scared to do it alone.

Afternoon
Of
The Living Dead

After Harmony
and I bundle up and go through the process of locking up the Inn, we walk down
the main street of
Toccoa
, silent and overwhelmed.
It's still cold, but not as frigid as Wednesday was. The snow fall became a
raging storm the night that Thomas and Matt left us, leaving our grieving
little group worried sick. My heart stormed all night in chorus with the
moaning wind. The next morning, the storm had passed leaving several inches of
fresh white snow on the ground. My insides were left empty and dark, no blanket
of peaceful white in exchange for my mourning.

I've only seen
snow a few times in my life. If I hadn't been in the depths of depression that
day, I'm sure I would've enjoyed it. I heard the other kids in town went sled
riding down the big hill behind the old Elementary school. None of them had
sleds, but that didn't stop them. They made due with garbage can lids and
flattened cardboard boxes. Aunty told me that Tim was there, too, forsaking his
responsible-old-man behavior to play with the rest of the kids.

That snowy night
is just a pleasant memory for the rest of the town; but I find myself still
lost in the stormy haze. The snow is mostly melted now and the sky is a vibrant
blue. There are still little patches left here and there in the shade of
buildings and bushes; but, for the most part, the ground is back to its normal
brown muddy winter ugliness.

The
agoraphobic feeling of being outside of the Inn and, therefore, unsafe returns.
I feel like
maybe we should've told someone where we are going. We don't normally have to
ask permission; but, in light of recent events, I feel a little nervous that no
one knows what we're doing.

Harmony and I
decide to start at the Western gate just down the street from the Inn. After
all, the Inn is where Matt was first seen. As we approach the security gate, I'm
happy to see that Anthony is one of the guards on watch today. He was kind to
Matt, ergo I like him. That's how my logic is working these days.
 

"Hey!"
I call as we walk over to him.

"Hey pretty
girls," he says in his deep southern drawl.
 

Harmony blushes
and stares at her feet. I'd better do the talking.
 

"Um, we are
going to walk around the fence and check it for holes," I say with made-up
nonchalant confidence in my voice.

"
Ohhhh
," he says, real slow and drawn out, his lips
scrunched in a pucker as he weighs out whether or not this is a good idea.
"You sure
dat's
smart, Miss? I don't dink
dat's
a job for two young pretty girls. You know
da
Elders already had a group of guards go around two days
ago and nobody found
nuttin
."

"Yeah, I
know," I lie. "So, then it's perfectly safe for us to go around and
get some exercise right? It'll just make me feel better to see it myself."

I hold my breath
as he considers my plan, hopeful that there will be no reason to argue. We
could always start somewhere else on the fence and avoid the guards and gates.
I hate to be sneaky, but I really need to do this. I'm surprised to hear that
the Elders took me seriously. That's pretty cool. It's comforting to know that
security has already checked around. But they didn't know where to look and I
have a suspicion about where the breach might be. I think I'd be more likely to
spot something out of the ordinary. Anthony doesn't really have the authority
to deny me my walk—fingers crossed.

I'm right
because his face says "no" but he nods his head slowly in the
affirmative, "Please be careful Miss Ivy. I don't
dink
it could hurt
ta
walk around, but stay
aways
back from
da
fence.
We seen
some real ugly groups near
da
fence lately. Less and less supplies in town
,
day're
short on
da
drugs
and meaner
dan
ever.
Everybody
getting sicker.
I don't
tink
anyone is helping
us on
da
outside anymore. We on our own now," he
says quietly while staring into my eyes with a warning. "I know
dat
all sounds pretty scary, but I mean for it. You girls
gotta
be careful now. Can't afford
ta
be naive
anymoe
,
ya
understand?"

"Yes
sir," we answer in almost perfect unison. I add, "Will you radio to
the other gates that we'll be coming through. Then we'll know people are
watching for us and expecting us. That would be even safer, right?"

"
Dat's
a good idea ma'am. How 'bout you come all
da
way round
ta
me so I know when
you're back."

"Okay,"
we wave and head down the fence in the direction of the North Gate.

We walk and talk
and periodically check the fence for any weaknesses. The guards were probably
very thorough—I'm sure we won't spot something they didn't—but it doesn't hurt
to double check. We look for any holes in the ground near the fence and also
watch for any trees that stick out over. Sometimes we have to go around a
building instead of walking along the fence. There are a couple of buildings
that go right up against the fence on our side, with a mere inch or two of
space between.

We've been
walking for about 20 minutes when we come within view of the North Gate. We
wave at the guards stationed there, but don't stop to talk. They wave back and
it's nice to know they were watching for us. They'll radio ahead to the South
Gate now and someone else will be waiting to wave at us.

We spend a lot
of time around the Northeastern side, near Jose and Ellen's house. That's where
Matt and Thomas disappeared and I feel certain that Matt's way in is somewhere
around here. We haven't obeyed Anthony's warning, walking right up against the
fence so we can pull on it regularly. About a half mile down the fence from the
North Gate, we pass a large group of zombies who aren't far from the fence on
the other side. This isn't out of the ordinary. With minimal apprehension, we
walk past quietly hoping to get by without being noticed or harassed.

I glance up and
unexpectedly lock eyes with one of them. The no-big-deal moment explodes into a
living nightmare. The infected man's eyes look crazed as he holds my terrified
gaze. He shrieks a loud cry of rage and my stomach twists violently inside
me.
 

They run at the
fence en mass. Some of them are limping badly, but the lame ones seem to drag
themselves to the fence almost as fast as the ones with healthier limbs. They
are alive with fury. Mutilated faces scream and rail against the fence and I
can see the chain links strain against their force. For a moment, Harmony and I
stand still and stare, stunned by their new violent fervor.
  

They form a
besetting, aggressive wall—grabbing the fence and shaking it while howling at
us. Is it the drug shortage that's making them crazy? Though the noise is
cacophonous, I can still hear how slurred and nonsensical their speech is. Some
of them just curse and shout sloppy obscenities at us like victims of
Tourette's
Syndrome
.

Harmony is
pulling at my arm, begging me to run; but I can't seem to unlock my legs.
Though I'm scared out of my mind, I still find myself searching the crowd for
Matt's face. The zombies are horrifying to look at. Many of them wear the full
body suits, but a lot of them don't. In the chaos of moving limbs, I see bare
areas of skin covered in sores and oozing blood. I don't know which is scarier,
the ones with masks or the gruesome raw faces without masks.

Screaming masked
faces is the stuff of nightmares, but the unmasked are grotesque. Skeletal
holes where there should be noses. Bloody lumps of tissue replace their ears
and make them look more alien than human. Lips that have shrunken back to
reveal the toothy snarl of a predator. They look dead. Like if we had arrived
just moments earlier we could've watched them climb out of their graves. How
can anyone act shocked or appalled at the name that best describes them?

How can Rev.
Depold
even speak of winning these awful animals? If they
could reach me, they would kill me—I have no doubt. This loopy lace of metal
wire is supposed to continue to protect us from them?

Harmony finally
succeeds in pulling my attention to her terrified face and we run past them as
fast as we can. Hiding behind the closest building, out of their sight, we wait
for the screaming to stop. It takes me a while to convince Harmony that we're
safe and that we should keep going. She's not feminine, but that doesn't mean
she's tough either. She survives by living in her own little world of books and
imagination. This is a lot for her to handle.

After
pep-talking Harmony back onto the trail, we carefully resume our mission. We
don't go back to check the section of fence where the group of zombies rushed
us. If there was a weakness in that section of the fence, they'd surely have
come through it.

We search the
bushes, yards, and houses near where Thomas and Matt must have been when they
suddenly disappeared. Just around the bend from Jose and Ellen's house, I find
some cinnamon gum wrappers trapped in the melting remains of muddy brown snow
under a large clump of bushes. I know Thomas loves cinnamon gum, but really, he
could've dropped the wrappers there forever ago. They could've been blown there
by the wind. Maybe he shared his gum with the little neighbor girl, Lois, and
she dropped the wrappers. It's nothing like a solid clue. We give up on that
area and keep going down the fence.

The fence runs
along the railroad tracks for awhile; and, though we check every possible place
there could be a weakness, we find nothing. The occasional storm drains running
under the tracks between our side and theirs have all been filled in with
cement and show no sign of weakness. This search is turning out to be
fruitless. I should be relieved but instead I am fighting back disappointment
and, strangely, loneliness.