Ashton Memorial (7 page)

“I never got to
pee.”

Angie sighed and nodded. She straightened
back up and shut the door. She looked at Park.

“You drive.”

Two

Ella bit her thumb and paced the
Communications Office of Ashton Memorial Zoo. She didn't know where
her mom was. She didn't know where her twin sister Lori was. She
didn't like it. It made her nervous. Especially with the stories of
what was going on outside.

She paced past screens, speakers and
microphones. All shiny and new. She didn't know how they all worked
but her stepdad talked about them constantly. The whole zoo
connected. Everyone able to talk to everyone else.

So why couldn't she talk to Mom and
Lori?

Caleb sat at the main desk. Caleb was a
college student, working part-time at the zoo while he studied to
be a vet. He was nice.

“Where are they?” said
Ella, to no one in particular.

“With your dad,” said
Caleb. He had short blonde hair and sideburns, and wore his
zookeeper vest loose and wrinkled.

“Not my dad,” said
Ella.

“Your stepdad,
then.”

“You're a wealth of
information.”

“Don't be a smart-ass,
Ella,” said Shelley. Shelley also worked at the zoo. She was
Caleb's girlfriend. She walked over to where Caleb sat.

“You're not my mother,”
said Ella. “If you were my mother you'd look like my mother, and
that's how I'd know you were my mother and not Shelley.” She bit
her thumb and kept pacing.

Shelley gave her a look as
she walked away. “Don't be rough on her,” she heard Caleb say to
Shelley. “She's worried.”

“She's a weirdo,” said Tom,
walking in from the attached breakroom full of Keepers. “Keeper”
was short for zookeeper. It was a nickname most of them used. Ella
knew Tom considered himself the unofficial leader of the Keepers.
The only Keepers who didn't accept his leadership were Caleb and
Shelley.

“And we're all fucking
worried,” Tom continued. “Turn the outside cameras back
on.”

Caleb shook his head. “No
point.”

“Screw your point from
behind, asshole,” said Tom.

Ella turned to Tom. “That
sentence made absolutely no sense.”

“You don't make any sense,
whack job,” said Tom. “You wrote
Steve
on the back of my chair. My
name's not Steve.”

“First, Tom, it's not your
chair, it's a chair that belongs to the zoo that you happen to like
to sit in. Second, I know Steve's not your name, it's the chair's
name. I can write
Tom
on you if you like.”

“Just keep away from me,
weirdo,” said Tom. “I don't care if you are the boss's
daughter.”

“Stepdaughter.”

“Whatever.” He turned his
attention back to Caleb. “Turn the cameras back on, pussy. I wanna
see more of the freaks. If we're stuck here, we might as well have
fun.”

“Fun?” said Caleb. “Are you
insane? My parents are out there!”

“I didn't see your parents
earlier,” said Tom. “Are they all fucked up?”

“You know what I mean, Tom.
Out there in the city. I haven't been able to reach them.” Caleb
pulled out his cell phone and checked it. He frowned and put it
back in his pocket.

“My grandma's in a nursing
home,” said Shelley, wrapping her arms around herself and frowning
at the floor. “I have no idea if she's okay.”

“Hey, dumbshits,” said Tom,
throwing out his arms. “I just turned psychic! No one out there is
fucking okay! It's just us trapped in the zoo and the crazy shit
outside. We're all that's left.”

“You don't know that,” said
Ella.

“It's obvious,” said Tom.
“You get straight A's and shit, you should know better.”

“A's aren't straight,” said
Ella. “They're sort of like triangles.”

Tom shook his head.
“Fucking weirdo.”

A two-tone chime came from
the speakers set around the room.
Bing-bong
. Caleb spun his chair back
to face the bank of buttons and dials.

Gregory's voice came from
the speakers. Ella still called him Gregory, despite Lori's
insistence on calling him Dad.
Dad
was an inaccurate label. An inaccurate name. And
there was no socially-accepted label for her stepdad. Ella tried
just calling him Stepdad from time to time. “Hello, Stepdad,” she'd
say, but everyone said that was too weird, even for her.

“Good morning, Keepers,”
said Gregory's amplified voice.

“Sir!” said Caleb, leaning
into a microphone and clicking a button. “Sir, where are
you?”

“Is that you, Caleb?” said
Gregory. “How nice to hear from you. How are you doing this
morning, young man?”

Caleb frowned. “Fine, sir,
fine. But where are you?”

Silence came from the speakers for a moment.
Ella and the others looked around at each other, puzzled. Tom
rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

Finally, Gregory's voice
returned. “I'm afraid I cannot divulge my location at this present
time. Things are ... complex. And dangerous.”

Ella walked over and pushed
past Caleb. She leaned into the microphone. “Stepdad? I mean,
Gregory? Where's Mom? Where's Lori?”

“Ella, is that you?” said
Gregory's voice. “Thank goodness. I'm glad you're safe. The safety
of you and your sister are very important to me.”

Ella sighed. “Where's Lori?
Where's…”

“Lori's with me, Ella.
She's here, she's safe.”

“Let me talk to
her.”

“I can't right now, Ella.
And I'm so sorry. She's not able to talk at the moment. She's had a
terrible shock.”

Ella blinked at the
microphone. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I'm afraid you're
about to have the same shock too, Ella. I wish I could tell you in
person but circumstances are preventing that. Please, sit
down.”

Ella remained standing.

“Are you
sitting?”

“No.”

“Please, Ella,
sit.”

Ella sighed and moved one of the chairs back
and forth, causing the wheels to squeak. She didn't sit.

“Are you sitting
now?”

“Yes.”

And he told her. He told her how Mom had
changed into one of those things outside. How he had barely saved
Lori from her. How he had rushed Lori to the safety of the zoo and
was hiding her until he was sure they were safe. Ella stopped
hearing words. Her blood rushed in her ears and hot tears ran down
her cheeks. Caleb and the others were silent.

“Mom's dead?” said
Ella.

“Yes, child, yes. She
almost got your sister, too. But I saved her. I'll save you too.
I'll save all of you.”

Shelley walked over to put
a hand on Ella's shoulder. Ella snapped her shoulder away, shaking
violently. “Mom's dead?”

“Yes, Ella, yes. I know how
you feel. My wife of all these years. Your mother. But I'm your
father and...”

Ella leaned into the
microphone and screamed, “You're not my fucking father! Give me
back my sister!”

* * *

Angie sat in the passenger seat, watching
the freeway speed by. The rain had let up somewhat. Park sat in the
driver's seat, steering the car. Maylee and Dalton were asleep in
the back seat.

“You're gonna have to sleep
soon,” said Park.

“I know,” said Angie. “I
just can't yet. I'm still shaking.”

They were both silent for a moment, driving
through the gray rain.

“Look at that,” said Park,
nodding out the window.

Angie looked and saw what
had once been a graveyard. Every grave had been dug open, leaving a
ragged and empty hole. “My god,” she said, quietly.

“What the hell is doing
this?” said Park.

Angie shrugged, her
shoulders aching. “I dunno. A virus maybe?”

Park snorted. “No. You know
how hard it would be to dig yourself out of a grave? These things
aren't much stronger than a living person would be. No way a virus
dug them out of their graves.”

Angie watched the graveyard
disappear past the window and listened to the click of the
windshield wipers. She looked over at Park. “What are you
saying?”

“This is a
plague.”

“So like a virus,
then.”

“No, not that kind of
plague.” Park scratched at his beard, watching the road. “An
old-fashioned, Bible-shit style plague. Locusts and shit like
that.”

Angie turned back to the window, saying
nothing. Way off in the distance, she saw a corpse stumbling alone
through a field. It staggered from side to side, reaching at
nothing.

“This,” said Park, “is a
curse.”

They both fell silent. Angie laid her head
against the cool glass of the window. Her head bumped along with
every rough spot in the road, but she was too tired to care. She
stared at the gray pavement going by.

“You asleep?” said Park
after a few minutes.

“No,” said Angie, not
moving her head.

“You should be.”

“I know,” said Angie. She
lifted her head up and turned to look at the kids sleeping in the
back. Her eyes lingered on Maylee. Park glanced at Angie, then back
at Maylee. He turned back to the road.

“I know it's not my place,”
he said, quietly, “but you sure give her a lot of shit.”

Angie looked at Park. Part of her brain felt
like it should be angry at him for what he said, but she was too
tired to muster it.

“It's not your place,” she
said, almost at a whisper. She looked back at Maylee again for a
moment, then turned back to face the road.

Angie sighed. “She turns
fifteen in a few days.”

Park watched the road for a
moment, then smirked over at her. “You worried about finding her a
present?”

Angie smirked back. “Not
that. I'm thirty, Park. My oldest child is about to turn fifteen.
Figure it out.”

Park nodded. “You were
fifteen.”

Angie nodded.
“Yeah.”

“That doesn't mean she'll
do the same thing.”

“I know. But it doesn't
matter.”

And they were both silent again. Angie laid
her head back against the headrest. She closed her eyes and focused
on the rocking of the car.

Angie sits crying on the living room floor.
She hears Dalton wailing in his crib. Maylee is asleep in her room,
Angie thinks. Then she berates herself for being stupid. How can a
kid sleep through all this screaming?

Jake stands with his hand
on the doorknob. He has his coat on and his car keys in his
hands.
Their
car
keys. They only have the one car. He looks down at Angie without
expression.

“We're done,” he says.
“I'm sorry.”

“Fuck you you're not
sorry!” screams Angie, sobbing. “If you were sorry you wouldn't be
doing this!”

“Whether I'm sorry or not,
this is what I'm fucking doing. I can't take this. I can't take the
sobbing kids, our crappy lives or you. I'm done.” He turns the
handle and opens the door.

“What the hell are we
supposed to do?” Angie says. She has no job and no experience.
She's never worked. She and Jake married while she was in high
school. He always worked. Angie stayed home. That's how they'd
planned it. That was what their lives were going to be. They'd
stayed up nights talking about it, before Maylee was even
born.

“Whatever the fuck you
want,” says Jake. “That's not the point. The point here is that I
don't care, Angie.” He opens the door and walks out. Angie sobs as
the door slams shut. Dalton wails from his crib and Angie somehow
knows that Maylee is awake and listening.

She realizes she's
dreaming and anger floods through her. Now-Angie is furious at
Then-Angie.
Get up
, she wants to scream.
Quit
crying
! She realizes that since this is a
dream, she can change things if she wants. She can revise history
so she gets up, chases Jake down and punches him in the face. But
she knows there's no point. No point to playacting with herself in
her sleep.

She stares through her Then-eyes at the
floor. The stained carpet. The messy room. Chaos. She's never felt
so out of control. Helpless.

No
, thinks Now-Angie, blinking Then-Angie's eyes.
Never Again
.

Angie jerked awake and pulled up from the
headrest. She looked around, disoriented. The landscape outside had
changed from farms and truck stops to strip malls and fast
food.

“We're closer,” she said,
rubbing her eyes.

“Yep,” said Park, steering
the car. “You got a good hour there. Feeling better?”

Angie nodded.

“Good,” said Park, smirking
at her. “Don't want you yakking on me.”

Angie said nothing, staring
out the driver’s side window. “Oh my god.”

The other side of the freeway, the side
leading away from Ashton, was packed full of unmoving cars. Two
unending lines of stopped cars, stretching back and ahead as far as
Angie could make out.